Stephen Holmes on Penal Substition

Some great stuff from The Wondrous Cross:

...we should not try to understand the cross of Christ through thinking about sacrifice, or love, or anything else in the world; rather, we should understand sacrifice, and love, and every other human reality by thinking about the cross of Christ. And if we take the view that only one of the stories of salvation is true, we end up denying this. (p. 78)

It seems to me that the key insight of any account of penal subsitution is precisely this: God takes the due punishment on himself...We cannot tell stories about an angry God and a loving saviour without being false to the Scripture and the gospel. The story that must be told is that punishment is due, and that the holy loving God takes it upon himself. (p. 95)

In being born as one of us, in baptism in the Jordan, in being made sin for us, God the Son identifies with us, so much so that, without injustice, he may bear our guilt and we may enjoy his blessedness. It is a marvellous exchange, which we cannot explain fully, but which we can begin to glimpse the possibility of. (p. 98)