Penal Substitutionary Atonement Defended From Scripture | 2 Corinthians 5:21 – Pastor Patrick Hines

Penal Substitutionary Atonement Defended From Scripture | 2 Corinthians 5:21 – Pastor Patrick Hines

A defense of the penal substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross for His elect people.

1. Isaiah 53:4–12
Christ is the suffering Servant who bears guilt, receives penal judgment, and secures justification: “wounded for our transgressions,” “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” “make his soul an offering for guilt,” and “he shall bear their iniquities.”

2. Romans 3:21–26
God set Christ forth as a propitiation by his blood. The cross is not merely a display of love, but God’s public demonstration of justice: God is “just and the justifier” of the one who has faith in Jesus.

3. 2 Corinthians 5:21
“He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is double imputation: our sin reckoned to Christ; his righteousness reckoned to believers.

4. Galatians 3:10–13
The law pronounces a curse on lawbreakers. Christ redeems us by “becoming a curse for us.” That is penal, substitutionary, and redemptive.

5. 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

6. Hebrews 9:12–28; 10:10–14
Christ offers himself once for all, obtains eternal redemption, bears the sins of many, and perfects forever those being sanctified.

7. John 10:11, 14–15, 26–29
Jesus lays down his life specifically “for the sheep.” His death is not merely hypothetical; it actually secures the salvation of those given to him by the Father.