PSA'S COURTROOM DRAMA

One of the most famous analogies for Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the courtroom. 

Stephen Morrison* gives a brief and accurate summary of the analogy:

"God is a holy judge, and we are the guilty sinners. God’s justice demands payment, demands our death, and therefore God’s wrath is against us until payment is made. We deserve punishment, but we are unable to pay back God’s justice or appease His wrath. But Jesus Christ came out of love for us and died in our place; God punished Jesus instead of us, thus paying back the Father’s justice, satisfying His wrath, and saving us from hell.  God turned His back on Jesus Christ, and in forsaking Him, God now accepts us as His children. God’s wrath is appeased, God’s (retributive) justice is satisfied, and God can now accept us as His own. This is penal substitution: Jesus Christ is punished (penal) in our place (substitution)."

I have heard it preached this way: A guilty man (representing you and me) is brought into a courtroom. The judge (representing God) declares him guilty - because he is. Although the judge loves the man and desires to let him off, because of his justice, the judge cannot do it. Just at the moment of condemnation, the judge's son (representing Jesus) steps out of the shadows and says, "Father, *I* will gladly suffer this man's verdict on his behalf". The judge agrees, his son is punished in place of the man, and both love and justice are upheld. 

Whatever else the analogy illustrates, it brings to the foreground one of the biggest issues with PSA:

By its very claims, it divides the Trinity. (When you read Morrison's paragraph or my simplified version above, did it occur to you that "God" and "Jesus Christ" are not two different beings?) PSA begs the question: Is Jesus God or not?

In Penal Substitutionary Atonement, either Jesus is not really and fully God or, if He is, then God is punishing Himself. 

And if God is punishing Himself to satisfy His own Justice - How is that Justice exactly? 

AND if God is punishing Himself for the sins of humanity - Could that not be understood as just another way of saying that God absorbs the cost of our sins into Himself? (Which IS basically what I believe.) 

*Morrison doesn't believe in PSA, so there is a chance that a proponent of PSA might be able to accuse him of misrepresenting the theory, but I have certainly heard it preached this way.