It’s different because it was God’s plan from the beginning, precisely prophesied in Isaiah 53 and interpreted in Hebrew 9:16-10:25. “Penal atonement” or “substitutionary atonement” is just a fancy term to call it. But none of that matters to you, does it, because you don’t believe the Scripture interprets itself. Then all I can do is pray that Yeshua can help your unbelief.
No, it's not different. Your statement here is just one-way Christians try to sidestep the obvious problems with the doctrine. Even if it was God's plan, which it was not, it would still be the same as the pagans. Rather than try to justify a doctrine that impugns God's character, why not do some research and find out the truth. As I said before that doctrine would make God a liar and one who killed his own Son just to satisfy Himself. Firstly, why would you believe in salvation if God lies? You couldn't "know" as the Scriptures say, the best you could hope for is that the promise of Salvation is not a lie. Not only that but the subject at hand would be moot. No one could claim OSAS if God lied.
I realize many have never thought through many of these doctrines and haven't seen the problems with them. However, I'm amazed at how those how have then try to justify them. I was excited when I learned that Penal Atonement was wrong. I was excited that I didn't have to accept this horrible portrayal of God. It makes me wonder how the Reformers who claimed to love God could devise such a horrible portrayal of Him. It makes me wonder if they really did love Him or if they, just like the Catholic church before them, were just doing it so they could control the masses.
My friend, if you love God as you say you do, I would highly encourage you to research the Ransom theory. A theory where God as a loving Father, allows His Son to give Himself as a Ransom to buy back that which was taken by force, kidnapped, and redeem it, man, to Him. A theory that holds that Jesus willingly gave up His life to set man free from his kidnapper, the one who held him hostage. This is the original Theory of the Atonement, not a theory of human sacrifice to appease an angry God.
Irenaeus, was a student of Polycarp who was a student of the Apostle John. Irenaeus didn't really have to interpret much as Polycarp taught him what the apostle John had taught Polycarp. This is what Irenaeus writes in his 5th book of Against Heresies.
1. FOR in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word. For what other person “knew the mind of the Lord,” or who else “has become His counsellor?” Again, we could have learned in no other way than by seeing our Teacher, and hearing His voice with our own ears, that, having become imitators of His works as well as doers of His words, we may have communion with Him, receiving increase from the perfect One, and from Him who is prior to all creation. We—who were but lately created by the only best and good Being, by Him also who has the gift of immortality, having been formed after His likeness (predestinated, according to the prescience of the Father, that we, who had as yet no existence, might come into being), and made the first-fruits of creation—have received, in the times known beforehand, [the blessings of salvation] according to the ministration of the Word, who is perfect in all things, as
the mighty Word, and very man, who, redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction. Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh,2 and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God,—all the doctrines of the heretics fall to ruin.
Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 526–527.
