Rustin Umstattd on Penal Substitution and the Trinity

Rustin J. Umstattd is Assistant Professor of Theology at Midwestern Baptist Seminary (SBC) in Kansas City, Missouri. He presented a paper in 2008 at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society entitled, "A Trinitarian Crucifixion: The Holy Spirit and Substitutionary Atonement." In the paper he deals with the Holy Spirit's role in the Atonement, an often neglected topic. My interest in his paper relates to how he deals with the theological problem of one member of the Trinity (the Son) being punished by another member of the Trinity (the Father). The punishment endured by Jesus, according to defenders of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement, is spiritual death which entails separation from God. The difficult question which all defenders of the PST must attempt to answer is how can one member of the Trinity be separated from another member without causing a breach in the supposed eternal unity of the Godhead. According to A.T.B. McGowan this is the most difficult problem posed by the PST of the atonement. He says:

Let me say that I fully understand the difficulty that attaches to this subject of the Son bearing the wrath of the Father, and I fully respect the theological complexity involved in maintaining penal substitution in the light of the need for a careful delineating of the relationship between the Father and the Son. In my view, this is the strongest theological argument to be faced by any doctrine of penal substitution (Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology [2006], p. 199).

The moment that appears to demonstrate the separation between the Father and Son is when Jesus crys from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). While some have argued that Jesus only felt abandoned by the Father, defenders of the PST, who understand the logic behind the theory, must maintain that there was an actual abandonement. As Umstattd argues:

Jesus’ cry of dereliction in which he quotes Ps 22:1 should not be viewed as a cry of victory in which the entirety of the Psalm is in focus, as a cry of unbelief or despair, or a cry of abandonment in which Jesus only felt forsaken, but was not in actuality.

He, however, adds an important caveat: One must be able to both maintain the abandonment of the Son with the unity of the Trinity that remains unbroken. He believes that it is the Holy Spirit who maintains this unity between the Father and the Son.

Can one say that Jesus was actually abandoned by the Father, though, without breaking the unity of the Trinity? It doesn't seem possible to me. Being abandoned, forsaken, or separated is incongruent with the notion of unity. The unity envisioned in the classic doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a unity of purpose but a unity of being. Each person is said to indwell the other persons. The theological term sometimes used to refer to this is perichoresis. This is a Greek term used to describe the triune relationship between each person of the Godhead. It can be defined as co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration (Theopedia). Jürgen Moltmann says regarding perichoresis:

{T]his concept grasps the circulatory character of the eternal divine life. An eternal life process takes place in the triune God through the exchange of energies. The Father exists in the Son, the Son in the Father, and both of them in the Spirit, just as the Spirit exists in both the Father and the Son. By virtue of their eternal love they live in one another to such an extent, and dwell in one another to such an extent, that they are one. . . . The unity of the triunity lies in the eternal perichoresis of the trinitarian persons (The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God,  pp. 174-75).

Umstattd recognizes the problem when he says:

[W]hen Jesus experienced the Father’s wrath upon the cross and he cried out from the depths of his being the lament of dereliction, the Son was not separated from the Father and the Spirit ontologically, but experientially.

I am not sure how one can be united ontologically and perichoretically and yet experientially be separated. It seems the only way this could happen is if one only felt as if one was separated, but Umstattd maintains the separation was actual and not merely "felt."


Another problem that Umstattd and defenders of the PST face is that if the separation was actual, then not only would there a breach in the unity of the Trinity but there would be a breach in the unity of the person of Christ. Chalcedonian Christology maintains that the two natures, divinity and humanity, dwell together in one single person--Jesus Christ--who is both God and man and yet one person. Is the divine nature in Christ estranged from his human nature on the cross or is it estranged from the Father and the Spirit? It seems that it would have to be one or the other.

Umstattd apparently holds that in one sense the Father and Son were separated on the cross but in another sense they were united by the Spirit. It is almost as if the Spirit is some kind of personal conduit who keeps the two connected even though they are actually separated. He writes:

[I]n the event in which God the Father pours out his wrath upon God the Son, the Spirit is both the bond of love that unites the two even in the separation, and conversely, the Spirit also applies to the Son the Father’s wrath, which is nothing other than the wrath of all three persons together.

He explains further:

[T]he abandonment of the Father was a far deeper suffering. From the depths of his being, he cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” In popular terms, the Father turned his back upon the Son because he could not look upon the sin laid upon him. In this forsakenness, Jesus was left alone on the cross to bear the full weight of judgment. At this point, the Spirit is the bond that holds the Trinity together. While that is assuredly correct, it fails to capture another element of the Spirit’s work, his actualizing of the Father’s judgment given to the Son, in which the Son comes under his own judgment. When Jesus experienced the abandonment of the Father, it was executed by and in the Spirit as the one who actualizes God’s interaction with humanity. The abandonment of the Father was experienced by Jesus in the Spirit, while at the same time, underneath and in concert with the abandonment the Spirit held the Father and Son together in unity.

I don't see how Umstattd's position avoids contradiction. If two persons are separated, another person may serve as an intermediary between the two, but if the third person is actually a personal conduit through which the connection is ontologically maintained, then there is no actual separation between the persons. If  the God-man is not actually separated from the Trinity on the cross, then he does not endure spiritual death. And since spiritual death is the penalty for sin, he does not endure the penalty for sin thus negating the PST of the atonement.

Reformed Theologians on Jesus Suffering Separation from God

One of the key components of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement is that Jesus bore the penalty due sinners himself in order that sinners might be freed from the penalty. What is the penalty? Clearly, in Scripture it is death, but not merely physical death but spiritual death, i.e., separation from God. As I have pointed out previously, this presents enormous theological problems such as 1) how can one member of the Trinity be separated from another member without there being a breach in the Godhead?; 2) how could Jesus as both God and man be separated from himself? If one argues that his human nature was separated from his divine nature, then that destroys the unity of his person; and 3) how could one member of the Godhead be angry and full of wrath against another member?

Lest anyone doubt that PST defenders believe that Jesus suffered spiritual separation from his Father, read these quotes:

Charles Hodge (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, Part 3, Ch 6, Sec 3): The penalty of the divine law is said to be eternal death. Therefore if Christ suffered the penalty of the law He must have suffered death eternal; or, as others say, He must have endured the same kind of sufferings as those who are cast off from God and die eternally are called upon to suffer.

Loraine Boettner (The Reformed Faith, Ch. 3): We should remember that Christ's suffering in His human nature, as He hung on the cross those six hours, was not primarily physical, but mental and spiritual. When He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," He was literally suffering the pangs of hell. For that is essentially what hell is, separation from God, separation from everything that is good and desirable. Such suffering is beyond our comprehension. But since He suffered as a divine-human person, His suffering was a just equivalent for all that His people would have suffered in an eternity in hell.

John MacArthur (The Murder of Jesus, pp. 219-21): To [Jesus] was imputed the guilt of their sins, and He was suffering the punishment for those sins on their behalf. And the very essence of that punishment was the outpouring of God's wrath against sinners. In some mysterious way during those awful hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against sin, and the recipient of that wrath was God's own beloved Son. In this lies the true meaning of the cross.

...Christ died in our place and in our stead - and He received the very same outpouring of divine wrath in all its fury that we deserved for our sin. It was a punishment so severe that a mortal could spend all eternity in the torments of hell, and still he would not have begun to exhaust the divine wrath that was heaped on Christ at the cross. This was the true measure of Christ's sufferings on the cross. The physical pains of crucifixion - dreadful as they were - were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him. The anticipation of this was what had caused Him to sweat blood in the garden. This is why He looked ahead to the cross with such horror. We cannot begin to fathom all that was involved in paying the price of our sin. It's sufficient to understand that all our worst fears about the horrors of hell - and more - were realized by Him as He received the due penalty of others' wrongdoing. And in that awful, sacred hour, it was as if the Father abandoned Him. Though there was surely no interruption in the Father's love for Him as a Son, God nonetheless turned away from Him and forsook Him as our substitute.

John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2, Ch.16, Sec. 10): Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God's anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death. ... ... Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgment which he endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.

Martin Luther (Select Works of Martin Luther, trans. Henry Cole, [1826], vol. 4, p. 365):
We do not by all these observations say that Christ did not suffer in a different way from us, and that he was not tortured and dismayed in soul differently from us, or different from what the damned feel in their dread of, and a fleeing from, God. For Christ even in his own eyes was like unto one forsaken, cursed, a sinner, a blasphemer, and one damned, though, without sin. Because it was not a matter of play, or jest, or hypocrisy, when he said: “Thou hast forsaken me:” for then he felt himself really forsaken in all things even as a sinner is forsaken after he has sinned.

Martin Luther ("A Sermon on Preparing to Die," in Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull, p. 422):  So then, gaze at the heavenly picture of Christ, who descended into hell for your sake and was forsaken by God as one eternally damned when he spoke the words on the cross, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!” - “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” In that picture your hell is defeated and your uncertain election is made sure.

Wayne Grudem (“Bible Doctrine.” Page 253-254):  The physical pain of the crucifixion and the [psychological] pain of taking on himself the absolute evil of our sins were aggravated by the fact that Jesus faced this pain alone. … Yet more difficult than these three previous aspects of Jesus' pain was the pain of bearing the wrath of God upon himself. As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.

R.C. Sproul (Together for the Gospel. April 17, 2008. Louisville, KY. Session V - "The Curse Motif of the Atonement," Minute 55:01):  What prevents us from seeing God is our heart. Our impurity. But Jesus had no impurity. And Thomas said He was pure in heart. So obviously He had some, some experience of the beauty of the Father. Until that moment that my sin was placed upon Him. And the one who was pure was pure no more. And God cursed Him. It was if there was a cry from Heaven – excuse my language but I can be no more accurate than to say – it was as if Jesus heard the words 'God damn you', because that's what it meant to be cursed, to be damned, to be under the anathema of the Father. As I said I don't understand that, but I know that it's true.

John Piper (Resolved Conference 2008. Session 8 – "The Echo and Insufficiency of Hell," Min 40:00): Hell is all about echoing faintly the glory of Calvary. That's the meaning of hell in this room right now. To help you feel in some emotional measure the magnificence of what Christ did for you when he bore not only your eternal suffering, but millions of people's eternal suffering when His Father put our curse on Him. What a Saviour is echoed in the flames of hell. So that's what I mean when I say hell is an echo of the glory of God, and an echo of the Savior's sufferings, and therefore an echo of the infinite love of God for our souls.

C.J. Mahaney (Resolved Conference 2008. Session 11 - "The Cry From the Cross," Min. 46:35): This moment in Mark chapter 15 [i.e. “My God, my God”], it is this moment, it is what takes place in this moment that delivers us from hell. This agony, this scream, is what delivers all those who turn from their sin and trust in the Savior from hell. On the cross, Jesus experienced hell for us. He experienced hell for us, bearing God's wrath and eternal punishment. And because He did, Heaven awaits all those who turn from their sin and trust in Him. He screamed the 'scream of the damned' [i.e., “forsaken me”] for us. Listen, this scream should be our scream. … This scream should be my eternal scream. He takes upon Himself my sin, the wrath I deserved for and against my sin, He screams the 'scream of the damned' for me.

I am indebted to Nick at Nick's Catholic Blog for assembling these quotes. They are found in a debate that he had with a Reformed Christian over the PST of the atonement (you can read the entire debate here).

Penal Substitutionary Atonement and the Trinity

This post ran on Luke's CommonSenseAtheism blog on June 21. I am re-posting it here for those who may not have seen it.

In prior posts I have discussed one of the problems of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement, namely, the injustice of punishing an innocent person. Today, I want to look at another problem that the PST faces: it's inconsistency with the classical doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty of sin. This understanding of the cross of Christ stands at the very heart of the gospel. . . . That the Lord Jesus Christ died for us—a shameful death, bearing our curse, enduring our pain, suffering the wrath of his own Father in our place—has been the wellspring of the hope of countless Christians throughout the ages (Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, [2007], p. 21.)

The key elements in the PST are: 1) Man has sinned against God; 2) God is holy and cannot excuse sin(ners); 3) God’s holiness results in his anger and wrath focused against sin(ners); 4) Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bore the full wrath of God against sin(ners) on the cross and completely propitiated God; 5) This propitiation enables God to righteously forgive sinners, declare them righteous and thereby reconcile them to himself (I have used sin[ners] because as I understand the Bible, God's wrath is not focused against sin in the abstract but against sin as it manifests itself in human beings, i.e. sinners).

PST advocates believe that this teaching is clearly seen in Romans 3:21-26:

But now apart from the Law {the} righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even {the} righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. {This was} to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, {I say,} of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Evangelicals believe that Paul here is explaining how God can remain just (i.e., righteous) and yet still be able to justify (i.e., declare righteous) sinners. He is able to do this because of the propitiation made by his Son, Jesus Christ on the cross. A key word here is obviously, propitiation. The Greek word, ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion), can mean either to “placate or appease” or “to expiate.” (C.H. Dodd has argued for "expiation" but most scholars have sided with Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, in translating it, propitiation.) The Greek word occurs 4 times in the New Testament (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10; Hebrews 2:17). In classical Greek, the word is used to refer to sacrifices which appeased the gods. So, the PST holds that through the death of Christ on the cross, God’s wrath against sin(ners) has been “propitiated,” i.e., placated, satisfied, turned away (they don't like to use the word "appease" because of its pagan connotations). This is because Christ bore in his own body the punishment that was due to sin(ners). See also 1 Peter 2:24 and 2 Corinthians 5:21 and I John 2:2. Now that God’s holy wrath has been quenched, He can reconcile sinners to himself and declare them righteous.

What are the problems with this view?

1. Is it only the Father that needs to be propitiated or is it the Trinity, including the Son and Holy Spirit? 

The NT speaks of the Father sending the Son to die (John 3:16, etc.) and of the Father being the one whose wrath is turned away (Romans 3:25, etc). The NT never speaks of the Son nor the Spirit being propitiated. It appears that it is only the Father who needs to be propitiated.

2. If it is only the Father, then how can the Son and the Spirit be said to be fully God? 

It seems that if they were equally holy as the Father, their nature would also demand that they be propitiated.
Holding that only the Father needs to be propitiated actually undercuts the divinity of the Son, yet that is how the NT portrays it.

3. If the need for propitiation does include the Son and the Spirit, then how does the Son propitiate himself?

First, it seems to be a contradiction for the same person to be both the subject and the object of the verb, “propitiate.” (notwithstanding the arguments to the contrary in Pierced, pp. 282ff.) How does one quench his own wrath by punishing himself?

Second, even if it is not a contradiction, how exactly does the Son accomplish the propitiation? The penalty for sin is death and God cannot die (by definition). Thus when Jesus died on the cross bearing the penalty for man’s sin, it was not his divinity that suffered and died but rather his humanity. If it was just his humanity, then why was the incarnation necessary? Could God not have just created another perfect Adam and had him pay for the sins of the world? Most theologians would say that the death of Christ is infinitely valuable precisely because he was God. But as I have already pointed out, God cannot die so it was not his deity that died.

Third, I do not believe that the hypostatic union of the Person of Christ answers this problem. The hypostatic union states that there are two complete natures, human and divine, in the one person of Jesus Christ. These two natures communicate their attributes to the single person, thus making the person both divine and human at the same time. However, it also states that these natures are not confused or mixed or inter-mingled but rather retain their distinctions. The early Church hotly debated these matters in the so-called Christological controversies but the final conclusion was stated in the Chalcedonian Creed of 451 CE:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

If the divine nature cannot die, then it cannot pay the penalty for sin. If only the human nature died, then it did not have the inherent value sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world. To say the person who was both God and Man (theanthropic person) died would not solve the problem, in my opinion, because it remains true that the divine nature in the person of Christ could not and did not die, so at best only part of the person of Christ died.

Fourth, if one holds that the person of Christ (which was both human and divine) did in fact die a spiritual death (which is the penalty for sin, Rom. 6:23), then you have the untenable position that there was at least for a time a split in the Trinity. If the God-man Jesus Christ suffered the penalty for sin as our substitute then he must have suffered "spiritual death." What is spiritual death? It is being cut-off from the presence and blessing of God. Is this what happened when Jesus cried from the cross: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me (Matt. 27:45; Mk. 15:33)? Listen to what the Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin had to say on this subject:.

We do not by all these observations say that Christ did not suffer in a different way from us, and that he was not tortured and dismayed in soul differently from us, or different from what the damned feel in their dread of, and a fleeing from, God. For Christ even in his own eyes was like unto one forsaken, cursed, a sinner, a blasphemer, and one damned, though, without sin. Because it was not a matter of play, or jest, or hypocrisy, when he said: “Thou hast forsaken me:” for then he felt himself really forsaken in all things even as a sinner is forsaken after he has sinned (Martin Luther, Select Works of Martin Luther, trans. Henry Cole, [1826], vol. 4, p. 365).

Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God's anger, and satisfy his righteous judgement, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death. We lately quoted from the Prophet, that the "chastisement of our peace was laid upon him" that he "was bruised for our iniquities" that he "bore our infirmities;" expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were, subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him. . . . not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price - that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2:16:10).

Modern advocates of PST have basically followed Luther's and Calvin's lead on this matter. For example, J. I. Packer in his article entitled, The Logic of Penal Substitution, writes: Calvin explained Christ’s descent into hell: hell means Godforsakenness, and the descent took place during the hours on the cross.

Yet, neither Packer nor any of the other PST advocates attempt to explain how the second Person of the Trinity can be separated even for a few hours from the other two members. This seems like a logical dilemma for the adherents of the PST. Either there was a break in the unity of the Trinity (which would be impossible) or Jesus Christ did not die spiritually (and thus did not pay the penalty for sins).

For these and other reasons, therefore, it is my opinion that the PST is actually inconsistent with evangelical Christian theology and the classical orthodox teaching on the Trinity. If the core doctrine (the nature of the atonement) of evangelical Christianity is false, then perhaps the whole system is false. I have concluded that it is and have left the faith.

Penal Substitution and the Trinity

In the recent book defending the Penal Substitutionary Theory of the atonement (PST), Pierced for Our Transgressions, the authors state:

The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty of sin. This understanding of the cross of Christ stands at the very heart of the gospel. . . . That the Lord Jesus Christ died for us—a shameful death, bearing our curse, enduring our pain, suffering the wrath of his own Father in our place—has been the wellspring of the hope of countless Christians throughout the ages. (p. 21)

The key elements in PST are: 1) Man has sinned against God; 2) God is holy and cannot excuse sin(ners); 3) God’s holiness results in his anger and wrath focused against sin(ners); 4) Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bore the full wrath of God against sin(ners) on the cross and completely propitiated God; 5) This propitiation enables God to righteously forgive sinners, declare them righteous and thereby reconcile them to himself. (I have used sin[ners] because as I understand the Bible, God's wrath is not focused against sin in the abstract but against sin as it manifests itself in human beings, i.e. sinners).

PST advocates believe that this teaching is clearly seen in Romans 3:21-26:

But now apart from the Law {the} righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even {the} righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. {This was} to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, {I say,} of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

It is believed that Paul here is explaining how God can remain just (i.e., righteous) and yet still be able to justify (i.e., declare righteous) sinners. He is able to do this because of the propitiation made by his Son, Jesus Christ on the cross. A key word here is obviously, propitiation . The Greek word, hilasterion , can mean either to “placate or appease” or “to expiate.” (C.H. Dodd has argued for "expiation" but most scholars have sided with Leon Morris in translating it, propitiation.) The Greek word occurs 4 times in the New Testament (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10; Hebrews 2:17). In classical Greek, the word is used to refer to sacrifices which appeased the gods. So, the PST view is that through the death of Christ on the cross, God’s wrath against sin(ners) has been “propitiated”, i.e., placated, satisfied, turned away (they don't like to use the word "appease" because of its pagan connotations). This is because Christ bore in his own body the punishment that was due to sin(ners). See also 1 Peter 2:24 and 2 Corinthians 5:21 and I John 2:2. Now that God’s holy wrath has been quenched, He can reconcile sinners to himself and declare them righteous.

What are the problems with this view?

1. Is it only the Father that needs to be propitiated or is it the Trinity, including the Son and Holy Spirit?

2. If it is only the Father, then how can the Son and the Spirit be said to be fully God? It seems that if they were equally holy as the Father, their nature would also demand that they be propitiated.

Yet, the New Testament speaks of the Father sending the Son to die (John 3:16, etc.) and of the Father being the one whose wrath is turned away (Romans 3:25, etc). The NT never speaks of the Son nor the Spirit being propitiated.

3. If the need for propitiation does include the Son and the Spirit, then how does the Son propitiate himself?

First, it seems to be a contradiction for the same person to be both the subject and the object of the verb, “propitiate” (notwithstanding the arguments to the contrary in Pierced, pp. 282ff.) How does one quench his own wrath by punishing himself?

Second, even if its not a contradiction, how exactly does the Son accomplish the propitiation? The penalty for sin is death and God cannot die (by definition). Thus when Jesus died on the cross bearing the penalty for man’s sin, it was not his divinity that suffered and died but rather his humanity. If it was just his humanity, then why was the incarnation necessary? Could God not have just created another perfect Adam and had him pay for the sins of the world? Most theologians would say that the death of Christ is infinitely valuable precisely because he was God. But as I have already pointed out, God cannot die so it was not his deity that died.

Third, I do not believe that the hypostatic union of the Person of Christ answers this problem. The hypostatic union states that there are two complete natures, human and divine, in the one person of Jesus Christ. These two natures communicate their attributes to the single person, thus making the person both divine and human at the same time. However, it also states that these natures are not confused or mixed or inter-mingled but rather retain their distinctions. The early Church hotly debated these matters in the so-called Christological controversies but the final conclusion was stated in the Chalcedonian Creed of AD 451:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

If the divine nature cannot die, then it cannot pay the penalty for sin. If only the human nature died, then it did not have inherent value sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world. To say the person who was both God and Man died would not solve the problem, in my opinion, because it remains true that the divine nature in the person of Christ could not and did not die.

Fourth, if one holds that the person of Christ (which was both human and divine) did in fact die a spiritual death (which is the penalty for sin), then you have the untenable position that there was at least for a time a split in the Trinity. If the God-man Jesus Christ suffered the penalty for sin as our subsitute then he must have suffered "spiritual death." What is spiritual death? It is being cut-off from the presence and blessing of God. Is this what happened when Jesus cried from the cross: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Listen to Luther and Calvin on this.

Luther: ‘Christ himself suffered the dread and horror of a distressed conscience that tasted eternal wrath;’ ‘it was not a game, or a joke, or play-acting when he said, “Thou hast forsaken me”; for then he felt himself really forsaken in all things even as a sinner is forsaken” (Werke, 5. 602, 605)

Calvin:‘he bore in his soul the dreadful torments of a condemned and lost man’ (Inst. 11. xvi. 10).

Modern advocates of PST have basically followed Luther and Calvin's lead on this matter. For example, J. I. Packer in his article entitled, The Logic of Penal Subsitution, writes:

Calvin explained Christ’s descent into hell: hell means Godforsakenness, and the descent took place during the hours on the cross.

Yet neither Packer nor any of the other PST advocates that I have read attempt to explain how the second Person of the Trinity can be separated even for a few hours from the other two members. This seems like a logical dilemma for those advocates.

Therefore, it is my opinion that the PST actually is inconsistent with classical orthodox teaching on the Trinity.