Why did God punish Jesus for our sins?

John Piper notes two things that make Christ's substitutionary death for us utterly unique.

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[wheresmylife]

Now THAT is a magnificent response.

[StJames37]

This view called 'Penal Substitution' is the invention of Calvin in the 16th century. He was a lawyer and that's partly why the theory is so 'legalistic'. Calvin and the other Reformers built on the novel medieval Roman Catholic 'Satisfaction' theory invented by Anselm, who was an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th century. Before Anselm - for over 1000 years - there is no reference to these ideas anywhere in Christan theology! This fact alone should make every Christian suspicious of both

[neodisciple]

@neodisciple When someone offends us, this is how we deal with it. Our forgiveness for others can only come into effect when the one who offended us asks for our forgiveness. When God asks us to love, and pray for our enemies. He is not asking us anything He has not already done. For, according to the Bible, God is waiting for people to repent, and notice how God comes into His creation to offer them forgiveness while they were rebellious. He did not wait for humans to reform on their own...

[neodisciple]

@tempemonkey2323 Hi there! tempemonkey2323, cool nick name. I'd like to focus on your 3rd question if you don't mind. In answering this question, I'd go back to what I said previously to @13thChip. I can see why you would say, "Why cant he just get on with life like any normal person and simply forgive others?" In order for God-like humans-to forgive others and get on with it. The person who offended Him, must want the forgiveness of the Him whom he violated.

[neodisciple]

@13thChip Sorry for the delay, 13th chip. "Why create sin?" Here's why; If God had not created freedom of the will, our love towards Him would be mechanical. We would be nothing less than robots, responding to the arbitrary commands of our Master. Sin, has to be here in order for us to make a free choice, either we worship Him or not. I pray that God would draw even you, to Himself, I pray that you, like I, would come to a place of repentance, and give God the glory.

Much love in Christ's name

[semperveritatem]

This makes zero sense

[StJames37]

@pegcage (St) Augustine departed from all other Church fathers in teaching that all of humanity is personally guilty of 'original sin'. Catholicism and most of Protestantism (and especially Calvinism) make a major issue of each person born into this world, being guilty. Eastern Orthodoxy doesn't see 'the fall' in this legal way. We are born fallen - but not guilty.

[StJames37]

@pegcage The Vulgate says in verse 12, '...in quo omnes peccaverunt' (in whom all have sinned). However, the original Greek ought to read '...because all have sinned'. Most modern translations translate the verse this way. The KJV says '...for that all have sinned'. In any case, this verse would support a view of 'ancestral sin', where all were/are fallen - but, nevertheless, no one is personally guilty of 'Adam's sin'.

[StJames37]

@pegcage Do you mean by 'through the first Adam all are sinners' to mean that we sinned in Adam, and are thus all personally born guilty of 'original sin'? All of the ante-Nicene Church fathers never knew about this doctrine because it was invented by (St) Augustine in the 5th century. Augustine's Latin Vulgate translation by St Jerome of Romans 5:12 was faulty and Augustine couldn't read any Greek to see that St Jerome had misinterpreted the ambiguity in the original text. 

[pegcage]

Romans clearly tells us that there are two Adams, both representing mankind. The first Adam brought sin into the world and through the first Adam all are sinners. The second Adam, Christ, came to undo the works of the first Adam. The law had been given to condemn mankind in sin. Then the perfect man, Christ, second Adam, dies for mankind and rises to give man newness of life. It is a matter of changing identities. Are you now in the first Adam or the second Adam?

[StJames37]

While in the grave, Christ descended into Hades (the realm of the dead/death itself) and utterly took it captive by filling it with his divinity!!! This is how we are both saved and being saved. The scriptures say that God was reconciling the world to himself - not that he was being reconciled to the world!

[StJames37]

medieval Catholic and Reformation theories of the atonement. The early Christians and Church Fathers taught that Christ came to bring us life through the Incarnation. He became man so that we could become deified. Also, Christ came to decisively defeat Satan, evil, and Hades (i.e. death itself). His love for humankind is so incomprehensible that when Satan and the powers of evil put him to death, he took utterly took them captive! Being God and Life itself, death could not hold him.