So, full disclosure: I was once one of those ill-informed people who denied Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA from here on out) on the grounds that it maligned the character of God and made Him a “cosmic child abuser.” In case you’re not familiar with PSA, it’s the doctrine that Christ died in our place—suffering the condemnation our sins deserve—in order to atone for our sins; thus satisfying the justice of God, and securing forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God for those who believe in Christ.

The past couple of decades have seen an explosion of criticism and rejection of this doctrine. The most popular and emotionally fraught critique being that this amounts to cosmic child abuse—because Christ is the Son of God; and He is crucified to appease the wrath of God.

Indeed, the most vulgar way of expressing the criticism is: God killed Jesus over our sin. As if, you know—God had a bad day at the factory, got drunk at the bar, then came home and beat His Son to death because Jesus reminded God too much of His ex-wife.

And by expressing the critique in the crudest and most visceral terms they can muster; the deniers of PSA are trying to trap traditional interpreters in a corner: If you defend PSA, you’re on the side of abuse and injustice and probably beat your own kids.

Basically: They caricature PSA until God looks like a monster; and thus, if you believe PSA (and cherish it), then of course you are also a monster.

Full disclosure: I have never even spanked my three-year-old son. So this will not work on me. It will not stick to me.

Now, my assertion is that the deniers of PSA who level the emotionally manipulative charge that it amounts to cosmic child abuse have denied—at least implicitly—the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, as expressed in the Athanasian Creed:

That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

Lines 3-6

Essentially, to posit any scenario where the Father (personal); or “God” in some abstract sense; “kills” a passive Son / Christ does grave violence to the very concept of the Trinity by a) dividing the substance of the Godhead; and b) denying the equal glory and co-eternal majesty of the Father and the Son.

Before I flesh out the issues here, I want to present a narrative that demonstrates the essential folly of the “cosmic child abuse” trope.

I want you to imagine a pagan culture that has had a disastrous year of drought, bad harvests, and raids by a rival nation. Because of their run of bad luck, they consult the priest, who deduces that their god must be angry at them for some sin.

The priest consults some tea leaves that tell him the god may be placated by an innocent sacrifice. So village presents three beautiful young maidens with symmetrical faces and straight teeth—virgins, of course. And the priest casts lots over the girls, and it lands on Lisa, and so her throat is slit and she’s burned on a pyre.

But the bad luck streak doesn’t abate. The desperate villagers are languishing, thirsty and starving, and now bereft of one of their favorite daughters.

The frustrated priest goes and chews on some betel nut and waits for an answer from heaven. What comes to him is that lovely and virginal is not innocent enough. The priest is given supernatural insight: the next male infant born to the village must be offered to the god.

And so, a few days later a screaming newborn is ripped from his mother’s arms, and cast onto a pyre—burned alive.

This exercise seems successful, and so is repeated periodically.

Now, unbeknownst to the villagers and their priest, it was actually a demon who manipulated the tea leaves and the lot cast, and put the idea of the infant sacrifice into the priest’s frenzied mind as he chewed on his betel nut.

And like devils always do, the evil he wrought in the minds and actions of the villagers and their priest was a gruesome caricature of what God has actually purposed. In other words, in getting it sort of right, on the surface, they got it monstrously wrong.

Those who are pushing against PSA are doing so under the conceit that what Christ accomplished on the cross according to the doctrine of PSA is really no different than the virgin or the infant slaughtered to propitiate the pagan deity. That’s how they’re framing it: the garish caricature instead of the glorious reality.

Here’s the first major difference between the caricature and the reality: The virgin and the infant didn’t choose to offer themselves as propitiation for the wrathful deity. Nor does the abused child choose to absorb their angry Father’s wrath. But Christ was a willing volunteer:

I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This is the commission I received from my Father.

John 10:17b-18 Evangelical Heritage Version

Christ went willingly to the cross per an agreement with the Father.

In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame

Hebrews 12:2 EHV

What was the joy set before Him but the redemption of His people from their sin and guilt?

Christ is not presented in Scripture as a mere victim. He knew exactly what He was doing, and who He was doing it for: No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13 EHV). Who are His friends? Those who will believe on Him.

It’s even deeper and more glorious than that. The Son of God became Man to redeem His bride, the church. This is a love story of one who will live, die, and be raised again to save His bride from eternal death and present her perfected and dazzlingly beautiful to the Father:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … so that he could present her to himself as a glorious church, having no stain or wrinkle or any such thing, but so that she would be holy and blameless.

Ephesians 5:25b, 27 EHV

There was an agreement between the Father and the Son from before creation, that the Father would give the Son a bride; and the Son would give His life for her, to redeem her, and present her blameless at the last day. And this agreement was from eternity:

[God] did this when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. He did this in accordance with the good purpose of his will

Ephesians 1:4-5 EHV

This covenant in eternity—called the pactum salutis—is the basis for the covenant of grace we experience in time. Thus, Christ assures us that: I appoint [Greek diatíthemi, to arrange by way of a covenant] unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me (Luke 22:29 1599 Geneva Bible). That kingdom was covenanted in eternity, from the Father to the Son. Likewise, Zechariah 6:12-13:

Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, and saith, Behold, the man whose name is the Branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the Temple of the Lord. Even he shall build the Temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a Priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

1599 Geneva Bible

Here, we see a counsel or covenant of peace between YHWH and the Branch (Christ)—the Son sitting in glory, reigning over His kingdom (cf. Psalm 2:7; 110:1; cf. Hebrews 1:3; 12:2b), and building His temple, the church (Ephesians 2:20-22; cf. 1 Peter 2:4-5).

This is, again, according to the eternal counsel of the Godhead.

He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, and it has now been revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

2 Timothy 1:9-10 EHV (emphasis added)

I say all that to say this: The cross of Christ is the working-out of the one eternal will of the Triune Godhead. The Father wills to send the Son to die for sinners, and the Son from eternity wills to be sent to die to redeem sinful humans. The Father and the Son will that the Son be sent into the world by the Spirit, and the Spirit wills to send. The Father originates this, the Son executes it, and the Spirit applies it. This is a voluntary agreement between the three Persons of the Godhead, enacting one eternal will.

Two other points before I move along to my conclusion. First: The Son doesn’t die to placate the Father’s wrath so that the Father can love sinners. Rather, because the Father loves sinful humans, Christ comes and dies for them.

So 1 John 4:9-10:

This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

EHV

And likewise, Romans 5:8-10:

But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, it is even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, it is even more certain that, since we have been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.

EHV

The love of God the Father manifest in the cross of Christ is that He loved sinners by sending the Son to die in our place, so that we could be reconciled to God and God’s perfect justice could still be upheld: He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so that he would be both just and the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26 ESV).

Second: The wrath of God is in the Son, too. Otherwise, Christ is not true God, and you don’t have a Trinity. The Son’s perfect holiness and justice are offended by sin just as the Father’s (and for that matter, the Spirit). Psalm 7:11 says that God is angry with the wicked every day (KJV). It is not only the Father who is angry at sin, but the Triune Godhead: Father, Son, and Spirit. If it is simply the Father’s wrath being propitiated—as these “cosmic child abuse” voices are accusing—you don’t have a Trinity. Christ is not God incarnate if His justice must not be satisfied.

So the “cosmic child abuse” critique of PSA errs grievously, to the point of committing Trinitarian heresy, at these two points, at least:

1. They divide the substance of the Godhead. For it could only be “cosmic child abuse” if the Son were not voluntarily enacting the eternal will and purpose of the Triune God.
2. They deny that the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. First, again, it could only be “cosmic child abuse” if one affirmed that the will of the Father and the Son were not one eternal will. To assign conflicting wills to the Father and the Son is tearing apart the Godhead by, as we saw above, diving the substance. Moreover, it is only “cosmic child abuse” if the Son is not equal to the Father. You must diminish the glory of the Son before the accusation of “cosmic child abuse” could even cross your mind.

Those who caricature PSA as “divine child abuse” only demonstrate that they are a) either ignorant of, or hostile to, how the doctrine works; its scriptural and historical pedigree; and what it affirms about God (and fallen humanity); and b) perhaps even more tragically, that they are ignorant of, or hostile towards, Trinitarian orthodoxy as defined in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.