Penal Substitution By Edward Jennings Analysis

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Penal Substitution examines Jesus’ death as it is understood to be substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus' death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment. It argues that Christ was published in the place of sinners, forcing him to satisfy with the demand of justice of God so He could be forgiven of his sins. As we view Penal Substantial, there are two views that are considered, the view from Weaver and the view from Jennings. Weaver wrote, “Forgiveness and Nonviolence: The Atonement Connections” and discusses our fate and how it is not controlled by our actions, what happened to us is only a natural cause. Jennings wrote, ““Transforming Atonement” and discusses how he believes our actions lead …show more content…
He has the understanding that what happened to us is caused by our actions. When he takes this view he agrees with Harold Kushner, who states that our actions lead to punishments. He believes that what happened to us is caused by how deserving of the things we reserve or don’t receive in like. He also responds with the statement that while we may be deserving of our fate, we should not respond with violence. To begin, Jennings presents the idea that to get through the pain, we find another “object” to fight against with our pain. He states, “Thus, if the people seemed to be in trouble with their divinity, the way to deal with this anger was to deflect it onto another object” (Jennings 4). When this statement is made, Jennings creates the idea that when a person is angry with the world, they will fight back with a certain object to make up for the pain they are suffering through. As he continues with his argument that we have control over our fate he discusses the tragedy. Jennings states, “they are drowning in a sea of unimaginable grief, they seize the plank of assuring themselves that God is in this somehow, that God Has not lost control of the world” (Jennings 9). The Kingdom of God is a magical place where everything is wonderful and happy. According to Jennings, to be welcomed into the kingdom we need to follow God’s rules. If we believe that God is in control of every choice we make. With this comes heaven, we can be welcomed if we are good people, but if God is making choices for us, we all should be good. This statement becomes confusing because, we make our own choices, God has no say in what we do. With that, God is not in control of our choices and Jennings is incorrect with his belief. When tragedy strikes, we find a way to blame God for what happened to us. When considering what we could have done better to change the way God thinks of us.

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