Is the "penal substitution" theory of atonement a valid understanding of what Jesus accomplished on the cross?

Dear Yesmar, we might have to consider, the cost of Love, that Jesus was willing to go through to reconcile mankind to God and all that this would cost him... also, for me personally I personally have to accept all that we are pointed to through the Scriptures; if I am to be at-one-ment with God; joined to Him... as Jesus so desired and prayed for us to be... knowing the Fullness of God as He did.  From what I see Jesus Christ paid a price we couldn't pay... 

Here's my answer. 

If we believe in God according to the Holy Bible sooner or later we will come to the subject of Atonement, and the awesomeness of God’s love towards us, the cost of love.  

As we look to the Scriptures we can’t help but hear how God has a plan to recreate Himself, bringing mankind into at-one-ness with Him. Peter preached to the called-out ones to repent and yield to God through His Holy Spirit. We need to be in awe of the cost of Christ's sacrifice for us, demonstrating reciprocity as we wholeheartedly yield to God.

Most of us know how Adam and Eve were separated from God.  Mankind has separated itself from God, having followed the example of our parents, Adam and Eve. God's solution to mankind's separation was sending a second Adam, Jesus Christ to make reconciliation and justification possible. Believing Christ and His message has the effect of making a repentant person at one with God. 

Through sanctification, a person in Christ becomes a new creation:  In Acts 3:19-21 we hear: 

"Repent you therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the “times of refreshing” shall come from the presence of the Lord: And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."

It has been God's purpose since the foundation of this world to restore all things that He intended for mankind when He created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden. We are aware of the fall of man as told through the scriptures. We also are told through Paul, Peter and the early church about restoration, and about "the cup Jesus Christ drank from."

We'd all glean more even from a slight study on cupbearers - in days gone by, monarchs feared that those around them would poison their drinks, so they employed the services of a cupbearer to sample the drink first. If it was poisoned, he died, sparing the king's life. “If it was safe, he shared in its refreshing qualities and remained in the king's presence and confidence.” 

Pharaoh's "chief butler" was actually the cupbearer (Genesis 40:20), a very influential position. Later, Nehemiah had that role as cupbearer to the king of Persia (Nehemiah 1:11). A cupbearer was frequently in the presence of the king, participating in whatever the king did. It also came to mean accepting what the king dealt out. 

We are told in the Scriptures from the Bible... this:

The whole world drinks of Babylon's cup, full of the wine of her fornications and abominations (Revelation 17:4; 18:3). Since "drinking of the cup" means accepting whatever is appointed for one to experience—both good and bad, joyful or sorrowful—all who drink of Babylon's cup will share in her future.

 So when I think upon all of this; I gotta realize that we have been given a choice, and yes we gotta choose a cup;  we are told he chose to do the will of the Father, so he drank of that cup; but first prayed asking if this cup of sorrow could be removed.

  In my humble opinion we need to study the significance of the cup more… to understand more. Also we need to carefully look at what Paul, Peter and the other saints saw and knew, (such as St. Stephen, that they would give up their lives for the restoration, or restitution, is characterized in verse 19 as "a time of refreshing”….

One question we may need to ask ourselves or ask of anyone who may have questions is this one (as we begin to study and know more of the Life of Jesus Christ is this following one:

  " Have we consciously rejected the cup of this world, of Babylon, in favor of the "cup of the Lord"?

 God will not mix the contents of these two cups; they are totally incompatible. We must choose one or the other. Paul says, "We cannot drink of the Lord's cup and of the cup of demons" (I Corinthians 10:21). We must totally reject this world, this Babylon, and that awful cup of the false church, full of her abominations and of the blood of the saints (Revelation 18:6).

We might need to study this too before we can answer your question.

The Cup of Christ  

- in I Corinthians 10:16, Paul refers to this cup as "the cup of blessing."

Now why would Paul say this?   

I've know I've answered this question, best as I can for now, as it raises so many more in me... Thanks for asking.  

Actually he died to validate the "Christian" belief and it wasn't required unless you chose to be a Christian. Suicide by cop does not actually obligate all mankind you know.

Jesus didnt "have" to die. He did so willingly.

Had he not though, all mankind would have perished.

Malachi 4:6 KJV — And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

John 10:18 KJV — No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

Explained in Dan. 9:24, Isaiah 53, 1 Cor. 15:1-4

Man has a threefold problem.

He has sinned, which is subject to justice, and he therefore has no human righteousness before God, and he has no power to live righteously.

Thus he is locked in a nature ruined by sin.

Christ has solved this problem by providing a new sinless nature for man and dealing with the demands of justice and righteousness.

He lived a perfectly righteous life as a human, thus accomplishing a perfect human righteousness. 

He was put to death for sin although He had none. The wages of sin is death, He therefore met that penalty for sin.

Since He had no sin of His Own, death could not hold Him and He was raised from the dead in newness of life.

Those joined to Christ by the Spirit share and participate in all those benefits, all that Christ has. They receive a perfect human righteeousness (not their own) before God, they receive the benefit of Christ's death for sin, and they receive a new nature to live by, empowered by the resurrection life of Christ enabling them to live righteously.

You can call it whatever labels you like but that is what has happened and been accomplished, and you can see it perfectly meets man's threefold problem.

@ yesmar ~ no, I don't like labels which fail of the truth. Better rather just to state the truth and then there can be no misunderstandings.

Weird. Who have you been talking to? Don't let them out of the cage.

The penalty for sin is death (John 19:30; 1 Peter3:18; 2 Samuel 9:27). That penalty was paid for you, Romans 6:23. Christ was & is God. God died for you. As Christ said, Go And Sin No More.

In that, that is the method God chose

We deserve punishment because we sin that is called Justice

We are offered deliverance from that Justice by Jesus Dying On the Cross  that is called Mercy

We are delivered from that justice when we accept that gift of Jesus that is called Grace

Misty is wrong in stating for sure that there was never a person called Jesus. In those days records of births and deaths etc were not as good as they now are in some countries. But whether that person was the 'son of God' with miraculous powers is a different matter.

None of it ever happened, Jesus never existed.