Penal substitution is the view that because man sinned and is guilty,  justice called for man to be punished, “but God so loved the world”… It makes a complete injustice seem to be of good intent. There is no good intent involved in complete injustice. And any gooshy feelings involved are devoid of good intent as well. They may be portrayed as good and even be thought of as good. But they are not. Just because someone thinks something is good does not make it good. For that is indiscernible from situational ethics which wars against absolutes. God’s standard of justice is perfect and contains nothing but absolutism. I do not care how much you love a serial killer. Hanging the librarian in his stead is just as much an injustice as it would be if you did not love the serial killer and decided to hang the wrong person for any other reason. Two wrongs do not make a right. And correspondingly two injustices do not result in justice. It is wrong to refuse to punish the actual party that justice originally demanded be punished. It furthers the wrongdoing by committing even more offenses against justice by punishing the wrong party (a completely innocent party). This is the main problem people are seeing in the false penal substitute doctrine. But as far as I have seen, none have been able to come up with a solution. The problem of how punishing an innocent party in the place of the guilty somehow winds up satisfying justice is actually a legal problem, and in fact, a legal impossibility. The real problem is that the churches, pastors and theologians have no sense of law or legal thinking whatsoever. The proof of this is revealed in their being deceived into thinking a complete injustice is not only justice, but also is the most perfect justice of God. If I were to say that the definition or epitome of a satanic false doctrine is to get believers and unbelievers in ignorance to take an unlawful view of God, one would be forced to agree. For since when is Satan an evangelist and advocate of the truth?

Heresies are not only known for using softer words and phrases in attempts at making an unprincipled doctrine seem more palatable, but rationalizations and false lines of reasoning also must be used to make an unprincipled doctrine seem principled. As usual, penal substitute defenders do not like to use harsh or blunt words. Instead, they like softer and more diplomatic sounding words, such as “imputed”. Imputed sounds softer than “punish”. Does it not? Limited atonement Calvinists use the very same tactics. Either God makes the decision for you or He does not. Either you don’t have any free volition at all, or you have nothing but free volition. Calvinists like to soften things and suggest that God “makes you willing to believe” or “He draws you into believing”. Either you make the decision freely of your own accord in complete independence or you do not. It is actually that simple. And there is nothing in between. Whether they use the words “punished”, “ransomed”, “imputed”, or “identified with”, they all are referring to the very same act of injustice. So when a person tries to make an injustice “sound better”, that is exactly what they are doing. Their mistake is that they are not starting from the basis of undeniable justice and principles of law, considering that the cross involved no punishment or wrath from the Father on the Son at all. What they need to do is begin using a principled legal basis to figure out what actually must have occurred. If you examine the Bible from the perspective that the Father did not punish the Son in our place and start reading the many passages in which God has wrath on the willfully guilty, then it all starts to make sense. It must be coupled with the Mosaic law concerning crime and punishment, to finally figure out that the punishment for taking an eye is the offender losing his. And that is literally it. No, “infinite punishment”, “unbearable wrath”, or “firey invisible element melting wrath”, but simply the punishments as laid out in the Old and New Testaments. When the idea of the Son being punished for man’s crimes is eliminated, then Caesar, being God’s servant to punish wrongdoers, means and can be taken literally for what it says. Samuel told king Saul that he failed to personally execute or carry out God’s wrath on the Amalekites. In the penal substitute view, this passage cannot be taken literally and commonsensically according to what it plainly says. Without the penal substitute view, it makes common sense and is easy to understand that even though this is mostly an unjust world because of the times we are in, God does at times and even these days use men and governments to carry out his wrath on wrongdoers. God literally ran Israel Himself. And it was His justice that was carried out in the land, through the prophets, judges, rulers and officers of the criminal courts. To pretend that there are two completely opposing systems of justice, directly contradicting each other (God’s and man’s), is insane. Even the law of Moses is man’s law. Are we supposed to have God’s sense of justice or a lower justice? For how are we to carry out the will of God if our “principles” of justice are completely contrary to His? How can we be just before Him if our justice doesn’t even remotely resemble His, but in fact wars against His. And He is the author of both? God’s command to us is quite clear. If we punish the innocent, even in ignorance, a complete injustice has been done! We are never, nor will we ever be permitted to punish the innocent, because it is illegal and a crime. It does not lessen the crime to put God in our place, portraying Him as punishing the innocent. In fact, to He who knows more, more is required. Is not God maximized in His wisdom and insight? Whether it be God, man or angel who sins, it is sin. Though God does not commit sin (and I am sure I have to add this caveat lest some of you suffer from high blood pressure), I am making the point that the illegality of illegal activity is not dependent on the species of being who performs it.

Without the penal substitute view, when one reads that the atonement offering covered sins of ignorance and inability, to which no punishment is called for, then you can take the passages according to their very words. The Passover is the overlooking, not passing over us and finding an innocent person to punish instead. Justify your beliefs legally and subject them to legal scrutiny, and ask questions such as: Does man deserve death for being created and born in a state in which he had nothing to do with, having had no choice in the matter? Let me tell you this: higher justice isn’t holding things against people that are beyond their control and things of which they are victims. I will tell you who is suffering when they are born ignorant and enslaved to a biological corrupt nature and instincts that are completely out of control, in a world full of disinformation, and it isn’t God. It is the person born in that mess. No wonder God is a God of mercy, love, aid and comfort. But people portray Him as the exact opposite. They hold themselves as authorities on the justice of God. Shame on them. For they stand condemned. If they are deceived, then God will give them a break. But if they are not deceived, the only breaks they will get are in their bones.

It does not matter how much you love a criminal offender, because justice does not throw itself in the trash and give the hangman the day off because you love a killer. Did God bear false witness when He told Israel what the punishments were under His system of justice for each particular criminal offense in the Old Testament? Was the nation of Israel (the nation that was a light unto the Gentiles about God, His justice, aid and deliverance for man), bearing false witness when they stated that the punishment for unjustified homicide was physical death? When Christ returns, will the world be run by man’s system of justice or by God’s? If you say man’s, then God’s justice isn’t brought to the world. Jesus Christ will rule with a rod of iron. But according to who’s justice, man’s or God’s? It seems that Christ uses the iron rod on the actual guilty parties. Does He not? Sodom was destroyed according to who’s wrath and whose system of justice, God or man’s? Accept Christ or reject Christ. But if you knock over a bank, commit rape or murder, expect to spend some time in prison or even suffer death if the particular capital offense you commit just happens to make the jury throw up when being informed of the details of it. So whether you lose an eye or not for having taken one, you having lost the eye is not the work of salvation. It is simply the criminal justice system dealing out the justice of God, if it does take your eye. Let no one deceive you. Just because this is an increasingly evil world where murderers are seldom put to death, and of the few who are it is decades later, all will have to face the justice of God eventually. It is because this is an evil world run by Satan that you do not see perfect justice and seldom anything resembling it, unless God intervenes. It is not because God has punished His Son. Justice has been satisfied, and therefore is the reason you do not see perfect justice occurring. Wrath, indignation and punishment await wrongdoers. And yes, I am talking about believers. So, if you want to live in the equivalent of a trailer park in outback Egypt for all eternity, never being allowed in Israel proper, let alone the city or the garden of our God, just continue to think that the loss of all rewards and acknowledgements of well doing is not a punishment.

How is a man saved but by faith? Whether he is sitting on death row, or is eight years old, having never even stolen a piece of penny candy, WHEN he has faith is actually irrelevant, now isn’t it? Which one is prevented from having faith? Death row doesn’t make you unable or less able to have faith. The circumstances, as well as whether you have committed smaller or greater criminal acts is actually irrelevant. Gee, even if you hold doctrines and views of God that Satan himself dreamed up, it is actually irrelevant when you are given the actual truth. So have faith, think on these things and look at all things through the principles of law. For God is not only righteous, but is also the epitome of lawfulness and legality. God’s justice should be easily perceivable and will not violate the very basic fundamentals of justice.

Would it be a stretch to think that Christ was put to death by men who were ignorant, and that for the purposes of the demonstration of His righteousness, again, for the demonstration of His righteousness? Was not the testing of Job for the demonstration of his righteousness? Was not the death of Stephen for the demonstration of his righteousness, of which Jesus Christ was the pioneer? What do you think the testing of Ester was for, or Daniel in the lion’s den, or of all the others who were tested and recorded in the Bible? Who is the accuser of the brethren? And you thought he had no accusations to make against Christ! Well, those accusations were proven to be false. And by that came the condemnation of Satan. On that basis, Satan’s rebellion was proven to be unjustified by once again,… legal evidence. Those believers were tested for the demonstration of their righteousness. Or was it the righteousness that comes by faith, even of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ being exhibited and witness to by them? There is only one righteousness. And it comes from only one place or person. Did you not know that? Whose righteousness are we to be witnesses and examples of? It certainly is not our own, because someone else originated it, owns the copyright and demands attribution lest we bear false witness.

Watch “What’s Wrong with the Penal Substitute?”
Watch “The Great Pretender | Positional Truth and The Penal Substitute”