Tony Jones responds to his critics regarding his understanding of the reasons why Jesus died here. I am here re-posting my comment to the discussion. As I have elsewhere argued, I actually do deny it outright because I think it is unnecessary for new life and the forgiveness of sin, does not account well enough for the Incarnation and the establishment of the Kingdom of God during Jesus' ministry, and constrains God to a set of mythic immutable laws that for some reason God is not free to change anymore after a certain arbitrary point in time.
The problem continues to be that penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is necessary for atonement to occur and victory over Satan. That is to say, satisfaction of God's immutable law, or as Barth argues contra the Westminster Confession "absolute decree" is held prior to the Incarnation. The question is why this form of satisfaction must be necessary for the resurrection to be effectual.
Following Eastern Orthodox theology, what is necessary for atonement is victory over death in new life which begins with the revelation of God in the Incarnation. Jesus is the true form of humanity as it ought to have been – in perfect union with God and in perfect life. From the very beginning, Jesus presents life and rejects death as a consequence of human living. Sin creates death, God's judgment is life and so, the reasons for the death are almost moot once Jesus is raised from the dead in terms of what those who follow Jesus are to do after the resurrection in response to it.
The question is if God elected to limit God's self in terms of an immutable law, or a notion of cosmic justice, to which God chose to limit God's action; or did God elect to limit God's self in the humanity of Jesus? The two are not mutually exclusive. While the former could have been the reason we can intellectually infer, to suggest that it is necessary for new life to be possible in Christ seems absurd because it attempts to try to prove too much to be of use to anyone trying to live this new life. Law becomes the focus rather than the Kingdom of God that Jesus revealed.
What we do know is that if we are to live this new life to its fullest, as Jesus did, we will likely be rejected and killed because of it. The question is why? That's a far more important question to address than debating various indefinite assertions regarding God's immutable law in my judgment. If Christians are to participate with the Spirit of God in the revelation of God's Kingdom given to us by Jesus, then we also have to accept the effect of the world on Christians since the world will reject it – even to the point of death.
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