Written by Gregg R. Allison |
Friday, August 26, 2022
This enlivening work of the Spirit shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus himself affirmed, “It is the Spirit who gives life” (John 6:63). The mystery of godliness confesses that Jesus was “justified” or “vindicated by the Spirit,” a reference to the Son’s resurrection (1 Tim. 3:16). And Paul underscored that Christ “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4). With his resurrection through the Spirit crowning his saving work, Christ is said to be raised for our justification (Rom 4:25).

When Christians think of the atonement, their attention is riveted on Jesus Christ, the crucified one. And rightly so. But as proper as this focus is, the Son wasn’t the only member of the Trinity engaged in that act of sacrifice for human sin.
Indeed, we may think of the Father’s action in the death of his Son. After all, Jesus’s haunting cry of dereliction from the cross was, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:35, echoing Ps. 22:1). Then, with his last breath, Jesus called out loudly, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). These gasping words of Jesus underscore the Father’s role in the atonement.
Less transparent is the role of the Holy Spirit. This is true in general, as theology is working to remedy the rather meager consideration it has often given to the Spirit and his work in creation, salvation, and consummation. Perhaps the work of the Holy Spirit that has been most neglected is his role in the atonement. And this brings us to our topic, with its twofold emphasis: (1) the role of the Holy Spirit (2) in penal substitutionary atonement.
This second emphasis was chosen because of an increasing number of attacks by some on penal substitution (Green and Baker; Weaver; Boersma; Heim; Baker). Others maintain that penal substitution is at the heart of the idea of atonement (Packer, ch. 2). Before we get too far, however, a definition is in order.
Defining Penal Substitutionary Atonement
Penal substitutionary atonement is an interpretation or model of what Christ’s death on the cross accomplished. As I’ve written elsewhere, its major tenets include:
1. The atonement is grounded in the holiness of God who, being perfectly holy, hates and punishes sin.2. A penalty for sin must be paid.3. People cannot pay the penalty for their sins and live; rather, the penalty is death.4. Only God can pay the penalty for sin, but he must partake of human nature to pay for human beings.5. By his death, the God-man, Jesus Christ, atoned for human sin.6. The atonement had to be accomplished in this way (“penal substitution theory”).
Now, this definition rightly highlights the central role of the Son, but there’s much more to be said, because the Son never acts alone.
Inseparable Operations and the Holy Trinity
Because God is triune, the work of the second person is never separated from the work of the first and third persons. This has traditionally been referred to as the doctrine of inseparable operations. It means that in every divine work, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit act indivisibly with one will and one power. For example, in the divine act of creation, God the Father spoke the world into existence through the Word (John 1:3)—the agency of God the Son—as God the Holy Spirit was hovering over the original chaos (Gen 1:2).
God the Holy Spirit was active from beginning to end in the divine work of atonement.
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Those who are being “led by the Spirit” into humble holiness will also be “led by the Spirit” in evaluating their impressions, and so they will increasingly be able to distinguish the Spirit’s nudges from impure and improper desire.

J.I. Packer’s essay, “Guidance: How God Loves Us,” in God’s Plans for Us (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 89–106, is a really important read.
Halfway through, Packer covers what he has argued thus far:
I have already said that God ordinarily guides his children in their decision-making through Bible-based wisdom.
I have dismissed the idea that guidance is usually or essentially an inner voice telling us facts otherwise unknown and prescribing strange modes of action.
I have criticized the way some Christians wait passively for guidance and “put out a fleece” when perplexed, rather than prayerfully following wisdom’s lead.
He acknowledges that at this point, some readers might be muttering in response.
Some readers may believe that I have played down and thereby dishonored the guiding ministry of the Holy Spirit. One cannot say what I have said in today’s steamy Christian atmosphere without provoking that reaction. So there is need now to discuss the Holy Spirit’s role in guidance in a direct way.
The last thing I want to do is to dishonor, or lead others to dishonor, the Holy Spirit. But the fact must be faced that not all endeavors that seek to honor the Holy Spirit succeed in their purpose. There is such a thing as fanatical delusion, just as there is such a thing as barren intellectualism. Overheated views of life in the Spirit can be as damaging as “flat tire” versions of Christianity that minimize the Spirit’s ministry. This is especially true in relation to guidance.
So, Packer asks, “What does it mean to be ‘led by the Spirit’ in personal decision-making?” The phrase, he points out, is from Romans 8:14 and Galatians 5:18 and speaks not of decision making but of resisting sinful impulses. But, he acknowledges, “the question of what it means to be Spirit-led in choosing courses of action is a proper and important one.”
The Spirit leads by helping us understand the biblical guidelines within which we must keep, the biblical goals at which we must aim, and the biblical models that we should imitate, as well as the bad examples from which we are meant to take warning.
He leads through prayer and others’ advice, giving us wisdom as to how we can best follow biblical teaching.
He leads by giving us the desire for spiritual growth and God’s glory. The result is that spiritual priorities become clearer, and our resources of wisdom and experience for making future decisions increase.
He leads, finally, by making us delight in God’s will so that we find ourselves wanting to do it because we know it is best. Wisdom’s paths will be “ways of pleasantness” (Prov. 3:17). If at first we find we dislike what we see to be God’s will for us, God will change our attitude if we let him. God is not a sadist, directing us to do what we do not want to do so that he can see us suffer. He wants joy for us in every course of action to which he leads us, even those from which we shrink at first and that involve outward unpleasantness.
Packer knows that virtually no Christian would deny what he has written here. But he also knows that some would say this is only “half the story.”
Part of what being Spirit-led means, they would tell us, is that one receives instruction from the Spirit through prophecies and inward revelations such as repeatedly came to godly people in Bible times (see Gen. 22; 2 Chron. 7:12-22; Jer. 32:19; Acts 8:29; 11:28; 13:4; 21:11; 1 Cor. 14:30). They believe this kind of communication to be the fulfillment of God’s promise that “your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left” (Isa. 30:21 RSV). They are sure that some impressions of this kind should be identified as the Spirit-given “word of knowledge” in 1 Corinthians 12:8. They insist that this is divine guidance in its highest and purest form, which Christians should therefore constantly seek. Those who play it down, they would say, thereby show that they have too limited a view of life in the Spirit.
Packer responds:
Here I must come clean. I know that this line of thought is sincerely believed by many people who are, I am sure, better Christians than I am. Yet I think it is wrong and harmful, and I shall now argue against it. I choose my words with care, for some of the arguments made against this view are as bad and damaging as is the view itself. The way of wisdom is like walking a tightrope, from which one can fall by overbalancing either to the left or to the right. As, in Richard Baxter’s sharp-sighted phrase, overdoing is undoing, so overreacting is undermining.
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His basic position is that he was born gay, there’s little chance of him ever changing from that orientation and so he somehow deserves to be in the pulpits of Jesus Christ’s Church, and that we actually need to have more men like himself in pulpits. He says he needs to be authentic to the way he was born, and anyone who commends him to Christ to change his sexual orientation is being abusive and unloving toward him.

Prior to this I have not spoken publicly about the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) internal debate over same-sex attraction and Pastor Greg Johnson’s efforts to see to it that more same sex-attracted men end up in the pulpits of the PCA. I have not spoken publicly because I did not believe it appropriate to publicly air this matter in front of the secular world.
Well, recently Greg Johnson published a book and has begun a series of interviews with secular TV networks and News/journalism Internet outlets promoting the idea that same-sex attraction is permissible in the church so long as the gay person does not act and consummate his / her desire with a sexual act.
As such now I can no longer stay silent, and I must publicly repudiate and refute Greg Johnson’s theological error and abominable sinful attitudes.
His basic position is that he was born gay, there’s little chance of him ever changing from that orientation, and so he somehow deserves to be in the pulpits of Jesus Christ’s Church, and that we actually need to have more men like himself in pulpits. He says he needs to be authentic to the way he was born, and anyone who commends him to Christ to change his sexual orientation is being abusive and unloving toward him.
However, Matthew 5:28 makes it clear that the mere desire for any sexual sin is itself sexual sin. The Bible teaches that looking and lusting, that desiring what God has forbidden, without acting or committing a sexual act satiating the desire is itself sin. This would necessarily include both lustfully looking at a woman by a man and any homosexual/lesbian sexual desire. Mr. Johnson is wrong. His teaching is theological error. He himself is showing himself to be a false prophet.
And in a most recent interview he has sinfully and publicly demeaned, insulted, belittled, and smeared other PCA ministers who we’re trying to have a private discussion internal to the PCA with him; instead, his desire was to go to the secular media to employ their sympathies to arm twist, shame, and silence the stand of these fellow elders for Scripture and godliness.
So permit me to publicly speak straightforwardly about this issue:
My every impulse to sin is just me wanting to be me… to be “authentic” … to NOT deny the way I was born—a sinner.
And every commandment of God regarding my sexuality and everything else is just God wanting me to be like Jesus and not be like me.
Regarding Greg Johnson let me say:
This is why I say Greg Johnson and the Revoice crowd don’t understand the most basic aspects of Christianity or the Gospel, and in no way are qualified to be anywhere near the pulpit…. other than kneeling in front of it and repenting.
Mark Kozak is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Providence Reformed PCA in Lavalette, WV.