“The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave Himself in the person of His Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin.” So begins the cogent defense of the timeless doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement provided by the death of Jesus Christ in Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by theologians in the UK Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach.

The above statement stands at the heart of the gospel, which is why it is hard to believe that anyone who calls themself an “evangelical” would raise a disenting voice against it, yet those disenting voices are numerous, as the authors point out.  The gospel is under attack from within the church. Much of the emerging church movement is a Trojan horse concealing pastors and theologians who purport to be a part of historic evangelicalism. In the name of cultural relevance they are prepared to denude the gospel of its essential distinctive - the bloody, sacrificial death of the God-Man - on the basis that people outside of the faith “don’t get it.” People outside of the faith have never gotten it ( see 1 Corinthians 1,2).

In offering their defense, the authors ground their thesis in both Scripture and history. Much of the historic defense of the doctrine of penal substitution is to be found in theological journals, dissertations, and lengthy systematic theologies. Pierced for Our Transgressions brings the best of the defense of the doctrine together in one very easy to read book. After thoroughly establishing the basis of penal substitution in Scripture, the authors relate the doctrine to the context of systematic theology generally, demonstrating its foundational position to all that we believe theologically.

Having established the theological framework for the doctrine, the authors display it in its historic context in the writings of of the Church Fathers, the Puritans, and contemporary theologians.

The most valuable aspect of the work, however, is the direct and practical way in which the authors interact directly with the objections raised to the doctrine of penal substitution in our contemporary theological context. Taking six broad categories of the debate (penal substitution and the Bible, the culture, violence, justice, the understanding of God, and the Christian life), the authors frame 26 objections offered by those who hold a dissenting view of penal substitution, dealing scripturally and historically with each (i.e., “The violence involved in penal substitution amounts to ‘cosmic child abuse,’ Penal substitution relies on biblical words, metaphors and concepts that are outdated and misunderstood in our culture,” “Penal substitution is not important enough to be a source of division”).

The book is a theologically saturated pastoral response to the critics of penal substitution. It is not a polemic with heated rhetoric aimed at individuals or groups. It is a cogent response to a heresy that has been fought since the early days of the church. It is an indispensable weapon in our arsenal as we continue to fight the skirmishes of the truth war.