Several years ago I started the habit of beginning my devotional time each morning by reading from a spiritual classic for 10-20 minutes. This has been a great way to read through longer, denser books. With this method, I’ve managed to learn from men like Athanasius, Gregory the Great, Calvin, Edwards, Bavinck, Lloyd-Jones, Sibbes, Owen, Baxter, Chesterton, and Machen. And in learning from them I’ve been better prepared each morning for the word of God and prayer.
Currently, I’m reading through a more recent book, John Stott’s The Cross of Christ. It is truly a modern day classic. How anyone could read this book and not be convinced, from the Scriptures, of the validity, centrality, and glory of penal substitution as the heart of the gospel is beyond me.
Here are two of the best paragraphs you’ll ever read on the atonement. Meditate on them. Pray through them. And don’t go to a church that doesn’t preach them.
We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ that does not have at its center the principle of “satisfaction through substitution,” indeed divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution. The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one that tricked and trapped him: nor an exact equivalent, a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honor or technical point of law; nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator. Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character. The theological words satisfaction and substitution need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstance be given up. The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.
The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone (158-59).
Amen and Amen.
