This is My Beloved Son, Whom I hate? A Critique of the Christus Odium Variant of Penal Substitution by Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton

This is My Beloved Son, Whom I Hate? A Critique of the Christus Odium Variant of Penal Substitution

Joshua R. Farris & S. Mark Hamilton

Joshua R. Farris is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. S. Mark Hamilton is a PhD candidate at the Free University of Amsterdam.

Abstract: There is a subtle, almost imperceptible, theological metamorphosis underway and it is taking place not only in the academy and as a result, in the pulpit, it is taking place in the pew. For, in some evangelical quarters, it is no longer enough to simply believe that Christ absorbed the wrath of God as a penal substitute. Some have recently gone so far as to claim that, as a penal substitute, Christ became the object of the Father’s perfect hatred. In this paper, we take a closer look at this rather frightening aspect of this Christus Odium variant of penal substitution—something that we think, if gone unchecked, may well become the logical (better still, illogical) deposit of a new dogmatic inheritance for the American evangelical tradition as it pertains to substitutionary atonement.
Key Words: retribution, rectoral, reparation, substitution, odius, satisfaction