Galatians 3:13 and Romans 8:3 Without Penal Substitution?

Last updated on: June 10, 2011 at 11:43 am by James F. McGrath

Galatians 3:13 and Romans 8:3 Without Penal Substitution? 2011-06-10T11:43:15-04:00 James F. McGrath

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Mike Bird posted on his blog Euangelion about a couple of my recent posts. Having addressed the first theme, inerrancy, in yesterday’s post, this one turns to the question of penal substitution. Since Mike asked specifically about Galatians 3:13 and Romans 8:3, I will make them the central focus of this post.

Galatians 3:13 is a fascinating text, and commentators have put a lot of effort into trying to make sense of it. Rather than reproduce such discussion in full here, let me skip right to the conclusions, and we can return to the steps that led there later if there is interest.

It seems to be an error to read this text individualistically. If one reads the Torah as though it were pronouncing a curse on every individual who fails to keep every single commandment, without offering the possibility for forgiveness or atonement within the context of that same Law, then one ends up either with a great deal of confusion and/or a view that doesn’t quite fit the texts themselves. And so I am inclined to see in the background (following other scholars, such as in particular N. T. Wright) the fact that the curse which the Torah warned of was a curse on the nation, not each individual, and the fullest culmination of that curse was exile. Many Jews understood themselves to be in an ongoing state of exile in the first century. And what could reflect and express that curse more poignantly than the Messiah, expected to rescue the people from bondage and exile, being crucified by the foreign rulers who were themselves viewed as an expression of that ongoing exilic state? It seems that early Christians viewed Jesus’ death as the Messiah embracing the exile as God’s righteous judgment on his people, and by embracing it and experiencing it, bringing that stage in salvation history to an end.

There definitely is an element of exchange or interchange in the process as Paul and presumably other early Christians understood it. But I don’t think they understood this in terms of penal substitution, where this represented a legal transaction in which the innocent suffers and the guilty goes free. For one thing, the reality was much more complicated, and neither the end of Roman rule nor the final ingathering of the scattered Israelites immediately occured. But more importantly, those who wished to experience the end of exile presumably had to join with Jesus in submitting to it as God’s righteous judgment on his people, and did not simply believe Jesus had ended it and then immediately experience an end to foreign rule or the full dawning of the kingdom of God. The death of Jesus was understood to bring one into eschatological tension, rather than resolving it, in ways that we’ll explore in the next passage.

Regarding Romans 8:3, it is important to get the full sentence at least by reading Romans 8:3-4. Paul uses a shared inherited language of sacrifice as a way of referring to Jesus’ death, but inserting that metaphor simply puzzles those of us who have never slaughtered an animal, much less offered its blood to purify a sanctuary. That metaphor seems to have clarified things for Paul and his readers, but for us it is just another thing that requires explanation.

If we look at the clues Paul gives us of how he spelled out the workings of Jesus’ death as a salvific event, the key element seems to be not substitution, much less penal substitution, but participation. My favorite verse illustrating this is 2 Corinthians 5:14-15. If Paul had thought in terms of substitution, we might have expected him to say “One died for all, because all should have died, but the one who died saved those who live from death.” Instead, Paul says that “one died for all, and therefore all died.” Presumably this is to be interpreted in connection with his language of being crucified with Christ – even going so far as to coin terms, akin to “co-crucified with Christ.” Paul seems to have thought of Jesus’ death and resurrection in terms of his dying and leaving the present age, and by being raised as the firstfruit of the final resurrection, Jesus was believed to have entered and inaugurated the age to come. And so those who are united with him in his death were likewise thought to have been set free from the powers of the present age, and to have begun to participate in anticipatory fashion in the power of the age to come.

Romans 8:3 seems to me to make sense against that background. Paul uses traditional language of sacrifice (the meaning or connotations of which depend on what one thinks sacrifice was for, and if necessary I’ll offer a further post on Leviticus!). But the focus for Paul seems to be the interchange that he spells out in more detail elsewhere. The death of the Son brings those united with him into the realm of the Spirit, so that we can begin already to share, albeit not yet fully, in the life of the age to come that Jesus has begun to live. Flesh and Spirit here seem to be focused less on either an anthropological division of humans into different components, or a vertical contrast between earth and heaven, and more on an eschatological contrast between the life of the present age and that of the age to come.

Obviously much of what I’ve written above could be clarified and spelled out in more detail. And many points connect with the “corrective” view that Mike himself mentions in his post. But I actually think these texts make more sense if one removes penal substitution from the picture altogether. Salvation for Paul is not a transaction, whether the metaphor be legal or commercial. It involves the transfer of believers from one kingdom provisionally into another, in a way that doesn’t simply “wipe the slate clean” or let the guilty go free, but Paul believed offered life-transforming power. And it is the fact that the latter is at best an afterthought in penal substitutionary models of the atonement that places it at odds with not only Paul but the New Testament as a whole.

Previous Post

June 10, 2011

God Beyond the Bible

Next Post

June 10, 2011 The Mandaic Book of John

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1 John 1 Peter 1 Samuel 1 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Corinthians 2 Kings 2 Peter 2 Samuel 2 Thessalonians 2 Timothy academia Acts of the Apostles afterlife Akhaten Alcatraz American Academy of Religion Amos Anglican Arabic Aramaic archaeology art artificial intelligence astronomy atheism atonement Babylon 5 Baptists Battlestar Galactica Bible Biblical Studies Carnival biblioblogging Black Mirror Blade Runner Book of Job book review Buddhism Call for Papers China Christianity Christmas Christology Chronicles Coptic creation Daniel Deuteronomy Doctor Who Dune Easter Ecclesiastes economics education Eldad Keynan Enoch Seminar Ephesians eschatology Esther Evangelicals evolution Exodus Expanse Ezekiel Ezra fantasy Fringe fundamentalism Galatians games Ge'ez genealogy Genesis Gnosticism Gospel of Jesus' Wife Gospel of John Gospel of Judas Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Peter Gospel of Thomas Greek Harry Potter Hebrew Hebrews Hinduism historical Jesus history Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Holidays horror Hosea humor incarnation India inerrancy information literacy inspirational Intelligent Design Ireland Isaiah Islam Israel Italy James Jeremiah John the Baptist Jonah Joshua Judaism Jude Judges Judith Lamentations languages Latin Leviticus libraries literature Lord of the Rings LOST Mandaeans Mandaic memes Methodism Micah monotheism morality Mormons movies music mythicism NASSCAL Nehemiah new perspective New Testament news Numbers Orthodox paganism panentheism pantheism Patheos Paul and his letters Pentecostals Philippians Philippians 2:6-11 philosophy physics Planet of the Apes podcast politics Progressive Christianity Protestantism Proverbs Psalms pseudoscience racism religion Revelation Roman Catholicism Romania Romans Ruth scams science science fiction Secret Gospel of Mark Society of Biblical Literature Song of Songs Star Trek Star Wars Stargate Swahili Syriac Taoism technology Terminator The Handmaid's Tale The Hobbit The Matrix theodicy theology theory Timeless Titus tomb Torchwood travel TRON Uncategorized United Kingdom Westworld X-Files young-earth creationism Zechariah

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 February 2007 January 2001

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz