(This is the second in a series of posts exploring penal substitutionary atonement. The first, on substitution, is here: https://jotsandscribbles.blog/2025/08/23/is-jesus-death-substitutionary/)
In my first post, I argued that Jesus’ death can (and must) be understood as in some sense substitutionary, and not merely representative. He died in our place so we don’t have to. He is not merely the king signing treaties on our behalf, but the king paying the fine on our behalf so that we don’t have to pay.
But why does Jesus die as our substitute? One important answer to this is that Jesus dies bearing the penalty for our sin. This is the language of law courts and justice. We are guilty of sin, and so deserve punishment. Jesus takes the punishment for our sin, and since our sins have been paid for/ punished, we are now right with God and free to enjoy relationship with him.
This is not a medieval legalistic invention. It is explicitly the teaching of Isaiah 53.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
God lays our iniquities/ sins/ transgressions on the servant, who experiences pain/ suffering/ punishment/ wounds, and the result of the servant taking our sin and punishment is that we get peace/ healing. The servant of Isaiah 53 is Jesus (e.g. 1 Peter 2:21-25)! Honestly, I don’t see how anyone reads Isaiah 53 and denies either the substitution (Jesus dies in my place) or penal (Jesus dies taking the punishment my sins deserve) element to Jesus’ death.
But let’s take another approach to see that we deserve punishment for our sins, and Jesus dies taking our punishment. In the Law of Moses, obedience to God’s law brings blessing, and disobedience brings curse (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 27&28). That should sound familiar from Genesis 2-3, where obeying God means enjoying life with God in a garden of “yes”, but disobeying God means suffering apart from God in a cursed world. It is slightly different to the more formal legal language, but a similar concept. Obedience to God’s law brings blessing, disobedience brings curse. The curse is the penalty for unrighteousness, for disobeying God. (And if you are worried by the idea of God cursing people, it may help to think of curse as God removing his presence and provision and protection. Blessing is God’s active sharing of his goodness. Curse is the withdrawing of his active goodness.)
So what happens on the cross? According to Galatians 3, Jesus is cursed on the cross so we don’t get the curse our lawbreaking deserves but the blessing his lawkeeping deserves. 10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’[e] 11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’[f] 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’[g] 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’[h] 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Galatians 3:10-14
This is penal substitution. We have done wrong and deserve punishment, described here as a curse. Jesus has done nothing wrong, and deserves blessing. But Jesus takes the curse for our sins on himself on the cross. And as a result of that exchange, we receive his blessings.
None of this means that other perspectives on Jesus’ cross are wrong- the Bible presents this glorious event in many ways. But the language of “Jesus dying in my place taking the punishment for my sins so I receive righteousness and life and blessing” flows directly from the Bible. This penal substitution is not a later imposition.
In my next post, I’ll think about something that seems to bother many opponents of penal substitution: how the anger of God relates to the cross. But for this post, it is worth noting that one can uphold penal substitutionary atonement without necessarily focusing on God’s anger. The evidence for God’s anger being poured out at the cross is something to show from the Bible not something that flows from a theory of atonement.
Jots and Scribbles 
It’s strange to me that as a culture we’re so squeamish about God cursing. When someone commits a serious crime we expect the government to do more than withdraw their protection and benefits, we expect them to actively punish. I realise that from the next post you don’t share this squeamishness, and yet you felt the need to make consessions to it in this post to keep your audience with you.
It could arise from self interest – I’m in favour of the government punishing crimes I am never likely to commit, I am alarmed by God punishing sins I have committed – but I’m not convinced that’s the internal experience.
Peter Lynas talks about us telling a half gospel story (you have a sin problem, Jesus is the answer) that omits creation and our purpose, and a quarter gospel story (God loves you) which isn’t really the gospel at all. Perhaps we’ve told the quarter gospel story so much that a God who punishes has fallen out of our Overton window, and we feel the need to fudge it as “withdrawing blessing” to be more acceptable?
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I think it can be helpful to start with bridges to the culture before the challenge- and to some extent focusing on God’s judgement being a withdrawal of good gifts rather than active wrath is an example of that.
But it is also a result of trying to give full weight to God as Creator. God as creator gives everything good, and nothing good exists without his ongoing sustaining work. So when God sends Adam out of the garden as a punishment in Genesis 3, it is the garden he planted and put Adam into as a gift in Genesis 2. When he says Adam will return to the earth in Genesis 3, it is out of the earth that God formed Adam and the breath he takes is the breath he gave. When the flood comes as judgement in Genesis 6, it is a reversal of God holding back the waters to make space for humanity in Genesis 1. God is radically the giver of good things, and so there is a sense in which he can never take away anything except what he has given- he only withdraws blessing.
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