It’s a modern hymn written by Stuart Townsend. As a Catholic and a theologian, I feel compelled to change one line in the first stanza/verse: “The Father turns His face away.” That’s heresy. Otherwise, it’s a great hymn, much better than a lot of things that are sung at Holy Mass/Divine Liturgy. Oh, I change the line to, “I cannot turn my face away.” As difficult to see “The wages of sin is death” at the Cross, we shouldn’t want to look away. And if we’re not looking away, how much more should the Father not look away! This is the true Son with whom He is well pleased, the Son to whom he commands us to listen.
We cannot eliminate the penal and substitutionary aspects completely, nor should we want to, but so-called penal substitutionary atonement seriously misunderstands sacrifice in service to the Calvinism at its root.
Let’s talk about 2 Corinthians 5:21. This verse is offered by Reformed as an argument for “double imputation,” the idea that Christ takes the penalty for sin, both natural and supernatural, and we receive His righteousness. The verse says this: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.” But that second “sin” means “sin offering.” We know that Christ’s sacrifice is a sin offering because of the writer of the book of Hebrews 10:12: “But when Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…”
Leviticus tells us that the life of any sacrifice is in the blood. 17:11. This is probably why the Israelites were prohibited from eating blood: they themselves are not so far above the animals that they can take the life in pride. They did so with trembling, to symbolize pardon for sins.
To be living sacrifices (Romans 12) is commanded by the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, who defeated death. St. Paul and all the other apostles would have no authority, if they were not commissioned by the resurrected, victorious Jesus. That’s why he tells us that faith in Christ would be pointless if he had not been resurrected. In the Eucharist, all prohibitions surrounding the blood of sacrifices are done away with, (see John 6:51-59) because when we receive Him, body, blood, soul and divinity, he can only give life; he does not lose it. This is why he triumphs by the power of an indestructible life. (Hebrews 8) This is why he is the Great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and he reigns eternally and serves to intercede. (Hebrews 10)
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