Recently, Thomas McCall published an article in Christianity Today entitled “Is the Wrath of God Really Satisfying?” As a Christian (and pastor and professor) who believes in penal substitutionary atonement —that Christ died in our place to assuage the wrath of God—I found McCall’s article helpful in places, but also confusing and misleading. After reading it several times, I’m still not sure if McCall is trying to undermine penal substitution, rescue it from abuse, or avoid it altogether.
At the very least, the article felt like a poke in the eye to the millions of Christians who believe that Good Friday is good precisely because Christ was stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God for our sake.
RUPTURED TRINITY
The main burden of McCall’s piece is to show that some popular preaching on the cross is at odds with orthodox Trinitarian theology. According to McCall, “God against God” theories of the atonement imply (or explicitly teach) that God’s Trinitarian life was ruptured on Good Friday. And yet, McCall argues, God could not turn his face away from the Son, because the Father is one with the Son. “To say that the Trinity is broken—even ‘temporarily’—is to imply that God does not exist.”
While I’m not convinced
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