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Penal Substitution versus Design Law – What’s the Difference?

Penal Substitution versus Design Law – What’s the Difference?

An online listener wrote:

What is the difference between penal substitution and design law? How do we explain the difference and reason with someone who believes in penal substitution?

Design laws are the laws upon which our Creator God constructed reality to operate. These are laws such as the law of gravity, laws of physics, laws of health, and also God’s moral laws. Deviations from design laws always damage those who break them and will result in death, unless the Designer intervenes to heal and restore. Thus the Bible teaches:

  • The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23)
  • sin grows and brings death. (James 1:15 NCV)
  • The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction (Gal 6:8)

Examples of violations of design law are:

  • Jump off a building—die
  • Smoke regularly—ruin one’s health and die younger
  • Commit adultery—sear conscience, harden heart, form character of a cheat, and, if no repentance and healing from God, die eternally

Thus, the plan of salvation is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together to heal and restore their creation back into harmony with their design—ridding the universe of sin. In this view, sin (which is being out of harmony with God’s design law, the design protocols for life) is the source of pain, suffering, and death. God is the source of healing and life.

Humans cannot create space, time, energy, matter, or life, thus we cannot create or change God’s design laws. What we can do is make up rules that we call laws and then threaten to punish people who don’t keep our rules. This is the way of sinful beings. This is Satan’s view and Satan’s way. One Bible commentator put it this way:

In the opening of the great controversy, Satan had declared that the law of God could not be obeyed, that justice was inconsistent with mercy, and that, should the law be broken, it would be impossible for the sinner to be pardoned. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan; (Desire of Ages 761)

 

God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan’s government. The Lord’s principles are not of this order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is the means to be used. God’s government is moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power.  (Desire of Ages 759)

 

This is the way of the beastly systems—human governments which will always coerce, force, and even kill those who disagree or rebel against them. And this type of law is always arbitrarily imposed. The book The Acts of the Apostles puts it like this:

“Whereunto,” asked Christ, “shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?” Mark 4:30. He could not employ the kingdoms of the world as a similitude. In society He found nothing with which to compare it. Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power; but from Christ’s kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is banished. (p. 12)

 

Penal adherents deny sin itself causes death and instead teach that sin causes a legal problem with the heavenly administration, requiring God to inflict death as an imposed punishment. They teach this, because they have accepted the lie that God’s law functions no differently than human law; imposed rules requiring imposed punishment.

Under imposed law models, there is nothing inherently wrong with breaking the law. Going 50-mph in a 45-mph zone doesn’t naturally result in any injury or harm to the violator of the law. The violator must be caught by the authorities, have their deeds recorded, their case presented before a judge, and then receive an arbitrarily determined penalty inflicted as punishment. This is human law, not Creator law. This is the way of sinful beings, not a sinless God. This idea of law is the basis of penal substitution theology. It is founded on a lie about God’s law and presents a view of God’s government that is functionally no different that sinful human governments.

In the penal view, God becomes the source of inflicted pain, suffering, and death. It is taught, in the penal view, that God’s use of power to torture and kill is “justice,” because sin must be punished. Such bad theology is the fruit of accepting Satan’s lie about God’s law and that God, in order to be just, must punish sin. In this view, rather than God working to heal and save the spiritually terminal, God becomes the one from whom we need to be protected, resulting in theologies that have, as their function, the sole purpose of hiding and protecting us from God, rather than heal us to be fit to live in His presence.

Consider the many ideas taught in Christianity that have, as their function, the purpose of hiding us from God. Why? Because people wrongly believe that if God saw their sin and their sinfulness, that He would be required to lash out with wrath and anger to inflict pain and suffering to punish them for their sin. This is exactly what Satan wants people to think, because this idea keeps people hiding themselves from God.

But David of old prayed, “search me and see the wicked way in me.” He didn’t want to hide his sinfulness from God, because he knew God wouldn’t punish him, but was the only One who could heal him, so he prayed, “create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”

God’s end-time people are to present a message to the world that calls them back to worship the Designer, and to worship “him who made the heavens, earth, sea and foundations of water.” (Rev 14:7) This is a call to reject the dictator-views of God and embrace the Creator, Designer, and Builder of reality! This means we must reject imposed law and all the false penal legal theology upon which it is founded.

But be prepared for the legal adherents to throw another lie at you. Be prepared for them to allege things like:

  • Jennings doesn’t believe in the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death
  • Come and Reason Ministries denies Christ had to die for our salvation
  • Jennings doesn’t believe in the blood atonement
  • Come and Reason teaches Moral Influence Theory

All of these allegations are false and are, in fact, diagnostic (evidence revealing) of the mindset of those who make the allegations. Just like Jesus said, “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” (Mat 12:34,35), those who say such things reveal they are stuck in the false, imposed-law model of thinking. Their words are evidence against themselves, not against what we teach.

We do teach Christ is our substitute, but as the Bible teaches it, not as the false legal system does. And how does the Bible teach it? “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2Cor 5:21)

Christ became sin, i.e. substitute, for us, so that (note the Bible reason) we might become righteous! Christ substitution was NOT to pay a legal penalty, but was to provide remedy to heal and fix what sin has done to His creation!

It was not possible for human beings to be healed/saved without the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. No human being could accomplish what was necessary. Thus, we do believe in blood atonement, in which the “life is in the blood” (Lev 17:11) and atonement is at-one-ment—restoring sinful humans to oneness with God. Thus, the perfect sinless human life of Jesus, that He developed singly and alone, becomes the healing remedy that we partake of, so that “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20) We become “partakers of the divine nature” (1Pet 1:4).

We do not teach Moral Influence Theory, which basically says the purpose of Christ’s death was to reveal the truth about God to win us back to trust and no more. We acknowledge that part of Christ’s mission was to reveal the truth to win us to trust, but we needed more. We needed a new nature, a new, perfect, human character that no sinful human could develop. Thus, Christ became human to, as a human, be “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” (Heb 4:15), so that “once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb 5:9)

Wasn’t Jesus always perfect? Jesus was always sinless! However, Bible perfection refers to a mature, sinless character. Character cannot be created by God. It can only be developed by the freewill choices of the intelligent being. Thus, after Adam sinned, no human could develop a sinless character. This is what Christ did for us! Praise God!

Thus, Come and Reason Ministries teaches Healing Substitution—Jesus became our substitute in order to save and to heal!

Reject the false, legal view of God’s law, with its false view of God as the imposer of pain, suffering, and death. Return to worship the Creator, whose law is design law and who is the source of life, love, and all that is good and who will heal you if you trust Him!

 

 

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I was so blessed by a friend who gave me your book, “The God Shaped Brain,” while I was sitting in church asking God to please help me learn more about Him and help me not to be so confused and scared. That was about 2 years ago. Your books have helped me to love God even more. I’m not confused or scared anymore! I have listened to all of your bible study classes and feel like I know the wonderful people that attend every week. Thank you for all that you’re doing in spreading the true message about God and His law of love. God bless you and your whole class.

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Tammy Cinzio, Australia

 

Testimony 34

I was introduced to Come and Reason Ministries by accident, via a passing comment made in a bible study class we were visiting. I checked this website out and my life was changed. The understanding of the truth of God’s character, and how we apply it, is so right. The tricky part is consistently applying which “lens” to look through. As I began to understand, I started sharing the basics of this understanding with a discussion group I was leading and, suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense that never used to. At the same time, I enjoyed an amazing opportunity. I was able to conduct a full bible study at WORK! What an amazing experience! It is such a joy to share the truth about God and to share how it all fits in the war between God and Satan. So many people benefit when we have a correct understanding about how God works and who He really is! Thank you for this transformational understanding. Keep up the good work! God Bless you!

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Testimony 62

I would like to express my thanks to the C&R team for creating a platform from which people can learn to trust in God and grow. My life is a witness to the effectiveness of this ministry. Without believing the truth about God as you have shown, I don’t know what my life would be like. I had given up on God helping me with certain sins – it was all useless. Given that the scripture is clear and God is so good, how could I have betrayed him so many times? I was a yo-yo christian; spinning up and down. My faith and enthusiasm was driven by discoveries/threats that prophecy is about to be fulfilled. But when I watched your “Healing the Mind” seminar, it was like a light finally went on. I could see God had no plan to hurt me, the danger came from sin, and that He is working to protect me and strengthen me. Thank you for allowing God to use you. The message God gave C&R saved my life!

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Testimony 51

I Love This Ministry!!!!!!! I see first hand how this message is desperately needed, how erroneous beliefs about God and His Character negatively affect humanity at every level. I thank God for your ministry, as I was searching on my own and was discovering some of your same beliefs and was blown away when I found your ministry. I know you hear it all the time, but it is truly life changing. May God continue to reveal His Will to you and Bless you!

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Testimony 48

I just want to tell you how blessed I have been reading “The Remedy!” It has become a daily part of my devotional relationship with God. In it I have found a God of love and a God that loves me! The bible has come alive for me! It is the first time that I can say that I have felt hope fill my heart as I have read God’s word. This is good news I can share! Thank you, Dr Jennings! Thank you for your heart for others. I can’t put into words how this has set me free! It has strengthened my trust and love for God.

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I just want to say thank you so much for your conversations via YouTube. I regularly tune in to your lectures, “Let’s Talk” sessions, and many others. Through these I’ve found greater depth and meaning to God’s word. Thanks for all that you do and please continue. I’m currently working in the middle of Silicon Valley at Stanford University. I feel like God really has me in the right place right now and I’m sensing that your teachings might be part of it.

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Testimony 28

I have been following your Bible study class for about a year now. I must say I am impressed with how your ministry has grown. I took it upon myself to listen to all your lesson podcasts from the past and they have both enriched me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I have learnt a lot from this class. I have also noticed how the class has grown in spiritual strength. One of the things that benefited me is that now I am not afraid of God. I use to be, but now it has melted away. The second thing is that you helped me to have a real life relationship with God. Now He is my friend that was always there and I love having him with me all the time. Thirdly, because of this class, it inspired me to take over and lead a class. I have called it “Let Us Reason Together,” adapting your inquisitive style and creating a class of free thinkers.

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Testimony 67

I was introduced to Come And Reason by a friend of my mother-in-law, who gave me several CD’s of Dr. Jennings. The clarity of the message and recognition that God’s is a God of love was so clear, advancing beyond Dr. Maxwell’s message. However, grappled with Maxwell saying God used emergency measures for the fallen world. Now after several years of being a regular listener of the Come And Reasoning bible study class and attending Jennings’ meetings in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, things are becoming clearer for me. Design law versus imposed law has added so much to my personal understanding of theology. This message has really impacted my work in counseling so many people miserable because they are searching for and trusting human governments to create order and peace or believing in a God who says love Me or I will kill you. I am grateful that I have an alternative view to offer my clients that makes sense. I teach a bible study class on a semi-regular basis and I value the materials that Come And Reason so freely offers to aid me in presenting this vital message. Thank you for continuing to provide advancement in our very limited understanding of a Infinite God that is rational and believable.

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Testimony 23

I would just like to add my voice to the many people who, I believe, must have contacted you to express their appreciation for the “Healing the Mind” DVDs. I’ve been listening to your Bible study class discussions for many years and I’ve been personally blessed by your research and teaching about the character of God.

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Testimony 59

I’m a native Ghanan, but am currently in France for my master’s degree. Prior to this, during my final years at undergraduate studies in Ghana, I was introduced to your ministry and I’ve been immensely blessed by what you share, especially about the Design and Imposed Laws. God richly bless you for that.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in France was to buy all four of your books. They not only helped me, but those I shared them with. I shared the message with an atheist student and I marveled at how God worked mightily in his life. Today this person shares the Love of God with others and debunks theories of who God is not. I want to share what you present in your “Heavenly Sanctuary and Investigative Judgment” pamphlet, because the message brought rest to my soul and I live today as a healthy person.

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