The Lost Message of Jesus

This page lists the questions asked by members of the audience at the Evangelical Alliance-sponsored Public Debate held on Steve Chalke and Alan Mann's book, 7th October 2004.

7th October 2004 - A public debateAs well as featuring formal speeches from Steve Chalke, Simon Gathercole, Stuart Murray Williams and Anna Robbins, the above event also included a Question and Answer session, for which Mike Ovey was added to the panel. Due to time restrictions, only some of the questions, which were submitted on special forms by members of the audience during the interval, could be dealt with on the night. What follows is a list of all the questions which were handed in - both those which were asked and those which were not. In certain cases, the wording of two questions was so close that we have conflated them. Where the question was directed at a particular member of the panel, that member is specified. Various questions refer to clause 3 and 4 of the Evangelical Alliance Basis of Faith. These clauses affirm the following: Clause 3: The universal sinfulness and guilt of fallen man, making him subject to God's wrath and condemnation. Clause 4: The substitutionary sacrifice of the incarnate Son as the sole and all-sufficient ground of redemption from the guilt and power of sin, and from its eternal consequences.

Questions asked

1. To Steve Chalke: Why are you separating God’s love from an understanding of his wrath? Surely God’s love is demonstrated in Christ dying for us, saving us from the wrath of God through him (Romans 5:9)?
2. To Steve Chalke: How can you believe that God did not turn his back on Jesus on the cross when Jesus cried out himself ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Surely, to deny penal substitution would be to deny the very words of Jesus?
3. Was Jesus, who chose his every word carefully, and is part of the triune God, mistaken when he said, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me…’?
4. Steve doesn’t like the idea of God’s anger at people, but Ephesians 2:3 says that ‘we were objects of wrath’. 2 Thessalonians 1:8 says that ‘God will punish those who don’t know God’. What do you do with these passages?
5. Steve said ‘people should not be frightened into a relationship with a God who defines himself as love’. But Jesus preached ‘you should fear: fear him who after killing the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.’ Was Jesus wrong to speak like this?
6. Steve said, ‘The Evangelical Alliance believes in substitutionary atonement, not penal substitution.’ Is this right, or just a slip of the tongue? What implications does this have for evangelical unity?
7. Why should Steve not write this book? Why are we living in a situation where people's thoughts are being banned?
8. Karl Barth describes Jesus as the Royal Judge who was judged in our place, affirming both ‘substitution’ and ‘punishment’, but in the bigger picture of divine justice. How do the speakers respond to this proposal?
9. Is sin a crime that needs punishing, or a disease that needs healing?
10. What does the panel understand by ‘God’s anger’? Is it not a product of his holiness?
11. Steve started by saying ‘People all need to know God is on their side.’ How do panel members explain this in the light of Romans 5:9-10 and the EA statement clause 3?
12. Stuart Murray Williams said that to punish an innocent third party would be unjust. But wouldn’t it also be unjust to acquit the guilty?
13. To Mike Ovey: Aren’t you making it all too complicated with all this theology? I just want to have a simple faith in Jesus – why isn’t that enough?
14. Can Christians with different views on penal substitution remain united?
15. Could we have a show of hands by all those who have actually read the book?
16. Would the panel agree that the tone of reaction towards the book is of greater concern than the perceived heresies in the book?
17. In his book, The Non-Violent Atonement, J. Denny Weaver says that penal substitution sends the message that violence can be redemptive and therefore gives divine assent to violent behaviour. What does the panel think of this?
18. Where does the Bible teach penal substitution and propitiation?
19. [The Baptist preacher] Charles Haddon Spurgeon stated that a failure to use the law in evangelism will fill the church with false converts with a false sense of hope. Is this not what we see today? Given the content of the book, could you comment on this, Steve?
20. To what extent is it appropriate to see the wrath of God as the natural result of sin (Romans 1)?
21. Does the panel believe that the Bible is God’s message to the world, or should we be looking for another message?
22. If the EA finds that Steve Chalke is no longer an Evangelical, will he be asked to resign his membership?
23. If penal substitution were rejected, how would you understand Isaiah 53:5: ‘The punishment that brought us peace was upon him’? Can members of the panel give a brief explanation?
24. Could both parties in this debate explain the theory of penal substitution?
25. What does the ‘penal’ part of ‘penal substitution’ mean exactly? Does it refer simply to the physical and mental suffering Jesus endured just before and whilst on the cross, or to a punishment which was more specifically meted out on him by the Father?
26. Who decides what truth is? What are the criteria?
27. On page 67 of The Lost Message of Jesus, Steve and Alan write about seeing the need to see the inherent goodness of the human race, and feels the Church’s emphasis on original sin is a serious mistake! How does this tie in with clause 3 of the EA’s Basis of Faith? Is Steve really comfortable to be called an Evangelical given his apparent distaste for the view that seems to be expressed in this clause?
28. Does penal substitution really involve God abusing an innocent man?
29. One of the most precious verses for me as a Christian has been Romans 5:8: ‘God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ Steve has claimed ‘God is not angry with people but with sins and systems in the world.’ Does he deny that people are sinful, guilty and deserving of God’s wrath?
30. Doesn’t penal substitution logically lead either to universalism or limited atonement?
31. What happened to Alan Mann?
32. Steve asserted that God does not punish the innocent. How would he explain his action in cursing Canaan not Ham (through Noah, Gen 9:5), in being appeased by the death of seven of Saul’s descendants and yet not the sinner Saul (2 Sam 21), and in ordering Israel to kill Canaan’s children in Jericho?
33. What do you understand to be the most significant moral implication of your view of substitution?
34. What does the panel understand by the term ‘propitiation’? (Romans 3:25)
35. Does not the penal substitutionary understanding go beyond the metaphors of atonement offered in Scripture? The death and resurrection of Jesus prove the perfection of God. Death could not hold the sinless one. Jesus said, ‘I and the Father are one.’ Jesus the Creator is exonerated regarding the origin of evil. By implication, the whole creation is exonerated and emancipated, as it was brought into being by the sinless one who has been proved perfect in a demonstration before the whole cosmos, thus laying the foundation for the gospel. What does the panel think?
36. To Steve Chalke and Stuary Murray Williams: 1 Thessalonians 1:8-9 says that the gospel is about waiting for Jesus, who saves us from the coming wrath. How do you explain this?
37. Penal substitution has perverted discipleship, and has perverted Jesus’ call to forgive others and love one's enemies. It has corrupted gentleness and non-violence and has led Christians to support redemptive violence, just war, punitive penal systems, capital punishment etc. What is the panel's response?
38. Jesus seems to regard the fear of God as a wholesome thing. To Steve, it seems an embarrassment. How would the panel respond?
39. On page 109 of The Lost Message of Jesus, Steve Chalke and Alan Mann state that there is only one kind of sin—forgiven sin. Given this, why the need for judgement?
40. It seems such a tragedy not to see the goodness of penal substitution. How could there be any greater act of love? We were totally separated from God’s love by our own sin (John 3:17). We could not have access to his love if our sin had not been dealt with, paid for, punished. That is only because God is good. How amazing that God took that punishment upon himself in Jesus so that sinners could experience God’s love. Yes, the cross is about God’s anger, but it is in dealing with his anger through penal substitution that God most extraordinarily demonstrates his goodness and his love. Could Steve comment on this?
41. Is this debate about the doctrine of God, or the nature of Scripture?
42. Are Evangelicals in danger of being distracted by good (and necessary) talk at the expense of action?
43. In what way is sin ‘defeated’?
44. Could panel members explain what they understand sin to be, and the nature of God’s response to it?
45. To all panel members: What is your favourite Bible text for or against penal substitution?
46. The Book of Acts is our great model for preaching the gospel. It does not contain the word ‘love’. Would Steve like to comment on this, given that he says ‘God is love’ is the gospel message?
47. Given Steve’s belief that God does not act outside his love, what do the panel believe about God’s final judgement of unbelievers?
48. Is unpunished sin a good thing or a bad thing? How does Jesus ‘soak up our sin’, as Steve puts it? If he did not take upon himself God’s righteous anger, what was he actually doing?
49. How is the cross a demonstration of his love, if it achieves nothing concrete? How does he save us? Why was the cross necessary?
50. How does Steve’s critique of penal substitution square with Isaiah 53:10: ‘Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer’? And with Galatians 3:13: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…’?
51. Twice in the Lost Message of Jesus, Steve and Alan quote John 3:16 ('God so loved the world that he sent his only Son…'), but in each case they omit the second half of the verse ('…so that all who believe in him might not perish, but have eternal life'). What is the reason for this omission?
52. Page 183 of The Lost Message of Jesus states: ‘The truth is, the cross is a symbol of love. It is a demonstration… to prove that love.’ Romans 3:25 states: ‘God presented him as an atonement…to demonstrate his justice.’ Why does Steve differ in his definition from what is so clearly set out in Scripture?
53. Doesn’t penal substitution focus on God reconciling conflicting attributes within himself rather than dealing with the sin that causes God’s wrath?
54. When God ‘turned his face away' from the crucifixion, did he do so out of shame that Jesus, an innocent man, had to endure it, or because he was not able to look at sin? Surely God sees all sin at all times anyway!
55. How can Steve correlate a God of pain with One who is full of eternal pleasure (Psalm 16:11)?
56. I am grateful that Steve is reminding us to focus on the full message of the Cross. I can agree that penal substitution isn’t the dominant metaphor in the New Testament—but it is there. What is Steve’s understanding of Romans 5:9 and 1 Peter 2:23-24?
57. Did Jesus have to die? If so, why?
58. If you could have 5 minutes’ chat with a friend who was about to die, what would you say to him?