Salvation Part 1

What Protestants Get Wrong

Introduction

Throughout my journey into Catholicism, one of the doctrines I struggled with most was faith and salvation (soteriology). Like many Protestants, I once believed that Catholics thought works earned a spot in Heaven. I even recall my cousin, at age nine, confidently explaining that everyone waits in purgatory until people on Earth "prayed enough times" to get them in…. He also told me that James Bond was real.

If you’ve ever held misconceptions like this about Catholicism, know that you’re not alone—I once did too. Unfortunately, many of these misunderstandings stem from either well-meaning but misinformed sources or outright Protestant propaganda.

This two-part series will reframe salvation from the ground up—cutting through misconceptions and getting to the core of what it truly means. In Part One, I will critically examine Penal Substitution, the dominant Protestant model, and demonstrate why it misrepresents both God’s justice and salvation itself. Part Two will then present the Catholic understanding of salvation, showing how Scripture, specifically the Passover clearly points to a Restoration-based Salvation.

Whether you agree or disagree, one thing is certain: truth matters. And understanding one another—rather than relying on distortions or strawman arguments—does far more for the Kingdom of God than spreading misinformation.

Protestants Have Tradition Too

Many Protestants assume their understanding of salvation comes straight from Scripture—clear, obvious, and unfiltered. But no one reads the Bible in isolation. Every Christian tradition, whether Baptist, Evangelical, Lutheran, or Calvinist, is shaped by theological history, and most Protestant views on salvation can be traced back to the Reformation.

Luther, tormented by anxiety over his sin, became convinced that salvation had to be entirely God’s work—independent of human effort. He believed Christ didn’t just save us but took our punishment in our place. Calvin took this further, arguing that God’s justice required punishment, and so Christ endured divine wrath so that believers could be legally declared righteous.

These ideas were not neutral interpretations of Scripture. They were reactions to the Catholic Church, the corruption of the time, and the Reformers' own fears and concerns. Over time, their views became the foundation for what many Protestants now take for granted as biblical truth. But what exactly did they teach? How does Penal Substitution define salvation?

Penal Substitution as a Legal Declaration

So, what exactly does Penal Substitution actually teach? The Reformers used simple analogies to explain how they understood the process of justification. One of the most common is the Legal Declaration Model, popularized by Calvin:

1. God, as Judge, requires justice for sin.

2. Humanity is guilty and condemned under God's law.

3. Christ takes our place, bearing our punishment.

4. God’s wrath is satisfied, so He declares believers righteous.

5. Salvation is a one-time legal act and cannot be lost.

This model has been the basis and formation of how many Protestants understand and view justification. In the next section, I will connect how this analogy truly connects to how Protestants view and understand their personal faith and salvation.

How Protestants Understand Salvation Today

Throughout my Protestant years, Penal Substitution was the foundation of my soteriology. My entire faith—how I interacted with God, viewed my sin, and understood my relationship with Christ—was shaped by one belief: to be saved was to be saved from God’s wrath.

For those who truly see the weight of their sin, Penal Substitution offers deep relief—the assurance that no matter how much they fail, salvation is already secured. This is why many Protestants struggle with Catholic teaching on salvation—the very idea of "earning" salvation (despite the fact Catholics reject this idea), or of a faith that requires works, feels impossible in the face of their own sin. If salvation depended on their own efforts, what hope would they have?

Because of this, Protestantism separates salvation into two parts: justification (declared righteous by faith alone) and sanctification (lifelong holiness that follows but does not contribute to salvation). Faith is seen as mentally accepting Christ and rejecting sin, with good works as evidence of salvation rather than a requirement. Whether salvation can be lost (on which Luther and Calvin disagreed) is ultimately secondary to the assurance that it is secured the moment one truly believes.

For many Protestants, Penal Substitution is more than doctrine—it’s a lifeline. The assurance that salvation is secure, regardless of personal failure, brings deep comfort. Any requirement for works—even as a response to grace—feels like it undermines Christ’s sufficiency.

I hope my analysis of Protestant salvation has been fair, as I once embraced this model myself. I understand its appeal—the security it offers is reassuring. Yet, when tested against Scripture and reason, it ultimately falls short. The remainder of this article will critically examine where and why it fails.

God’s Justice is Not an External Law

One of the reasons why Penal Substitution makes so much sense to Protestants is because it explains why Christ suffered so intensely on the cross. If God is a truly just judge, and humanity is guilty, then it follows that justice demands a penalty—and Christ, in His suffering, must have been taking that penalty in our place. His agony looks like the punishment sinners deserve, poured out in full measure. Furthermore, this is exactly why many Protestants accept this, model—it seems to fit the courtroom analogy—one that aligns with how human justice operates:

• A judge must uphold the law and demand justice for crimes committed.

• Likewise, Protestants argue that God, as the ultimate judge, must demand satisfaction for sin.

However, while for many years I accepted this model, I never realized that it is contradictory to God’s nature. This is because it flips God’s divine sovereignty on its head. As its most basic formation, justice is not something that God must conform to, rather it is something that comes from Him.

"Justice is in God not as a habit, but as His essence. He is not under justice, but rather justice flows from Him as from a fountainhead." (Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 21, a. 1)

In other words, in the analogy of the courtroom, God upholds justice by condemning the sinner, until Christ takes his place. From which the legal "debt" is paid. However, this frames a false portrait. For everyday people, this system makes sense because the judge is not above the law, therefore they must uphold it. But God cannot uphold anything, because he is over everything. If God wanted to forgive sins at the wave of His hand, or the sound of His voice, it would still necessarily be just, because God himself is the very nature of justice. Penal substitution causes a dilemma where God is bound by an external force which results in God pouring out wrath onto Himself—something that is contradictory by definition. Despite the obvious contradiction in logic, many Protestants will still hold to the idea that God’s justice is a part of his mercy. That pouring our wrath (onto Himself) is akin to a parent disciplining a child, out of love. But that example, too is flawed:

• Loving Parents primarily desire transformation in their child.

• Discipline is part of transforming children, but is not an end, in itself.

• Parents can forgive wrongdoing, without punishing children.

• God, too, can forgive all sins, without requiring punishment

To clarify, it seems logical to observe the event at the cross and surmise that Christ is bearing God’s wrath on behalf of humanity. But this is contradictory because 1) God is not required to punish anyone, and 2) God cannot punish/bear wrath upon Himself.

Despite flaws in the logic of the courtroom analogy, Protestants may still yet defend it. Claiming that while God doesn’t have to require a penalty for sin, He does regardless. This calls into question, the very reason God offers salvation to us in the first place. After all, if God could offer forgiveness without punishment, and yet chose to punish anyway, it would seem like a worthwhile question to ask: Why offer us salvation anyway?

God Wants to Restore Us

The reality is, that Penal Substitution assumes that there is a "cosmic debt" that must be paid. This makes God’s reasoning of salvation to be "settling a debt" and less about saving. This is precisely the case. God’s desire to save mankind, has nothing to do with a legal settlement and everything to do with God’s desire to restore us.

Oftentimes, I will hear skeptics and Atheists pose the question, "Why did God even create us?" and, truth be told, the response amongst Christians tends to be hotly debated. However, this was not the case four thousand years ago. The Biblical authors asked this very question, and answered it numerous times: humanity was created to bear God’s image.

Then God said, "Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." (Genesis 1:26)

It is common to think of the "image of God" as a set of attributes—our consciousness, intelligence, or free will. But this understanding is incomplete. Old Testament scholar Dr. Michael Heiser claimed that for the Ancient Israelites, "imaging" is not just about resemblance—but about representation. A more nuanced translation of the Hebrew reads, "Let us make humans as our imagers". Put simply, God created us to be his Earthly representatives.

For example, in Ancient Egypt, large polished mirrors directed sunlight into dark chambers, illuminating places that would otherwise remain in darkness. The mirrors produced no light themselves but reflected the brilliance of the sun. Similarly, humanity, possessing God’s attributes, was created to perfectly reflect God to all creation. However, like a shattered mirror, The Fall distorted humanity’s ability to reflect God. Sin fractured our likeness to Him, making us imperfect representations of a perfect and sinless God.

I hope you’re starting to see the bigger picture. God’s goal is not to punish mankind. He wants to restore us, to put the pieces back together so that we can once again reflect His perfect image. Once we understand this crucial fact, we can begin to understand that Heaven and Hell are not what salvation is truly about. Is Hell the consequence of a life apart from God? Yes! But that’s merely a consequence of rejecting God’s desire to restore you.

After The Fall, God could have easily exterminated humanity in an instant. After all, that would be just, wouldn’t it? If humanity bore such a heavy price, that God’s wrath must be poured out onto it, why not end His creation and start over?

Scripture reveals a God who does not punish for the sake of settling a debt, rather it reveals a God who enacts a plan of restoration—The Story of the Gospel. God could have easily wiped out humanity on numerous occasions, and yet even in the flood narrative, God chooses to save humanity through Noah. Time and time again, this is true. Salvation is not about avoiding God’s wrath, but about being restored as true image-bearers. 

Penal Substitution DOES NOT Restore Humanity

Despite salvation not being about justice and wrath, could Penal Substitution still be a plausible method by which God restores humanity? This section will reveal how the answer is: No.

In order to give Protestants a fair examination, instead of only critiquing Calvin’s courtroom example, I will also examine Luther’s pile of Dung analogy. For Luther, humanity is wholly corrupted by sin—so much so that, in God’s eyes, we are nothing more than a pile of filth. Because of this, we are irredeemable by nature and incapable of entering Heaven. To solve this, Christ clothes us—like a fresh layer of snow over the pile of dung. God, seeing only the snow, pardons us and grants salvation.

Both Luther’s and Calvin’s models share the same basic principles. Mankind, before God, is wholly irredeemable. Only through Christ’s sacrifice, are believers declared or clothed in righteousness. Therefore, God sees a righteous person, as long as they believe.

My simple question is this: In either model, does the sinner actually become righteous? This question is important because as Scripture makes it undeniably clear, the unrighteous cannot enter Heaven:

"But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false." (Revelation 21:27)

When examining both models, I find that neither explains how the sinner is actually restored to righteousness. In fact, both Luther and Calvin claimed as much; A snow-covered pile of dung is still dung. A criminal, though pardoned, is still in reality a criminal. Likewise, as I described, if humanity is a shattered mirror, then does simply declaring it restored actually fix it? Does covering the pile of glass with a blanket trick anyone into thinking the mirror has been fixed?

Suppose that in any of these examples, the sinner is actually transformed and made righteous. What happens when they sin again? Is not the definition of being righteous, not having any sin? If merely putting faith in Christ washes away your sin, then what happens after you sin again? The answer to all of these questions and hypotheticals is obvious: In no Scenario does being "declared" righteous, actually make the sinner righteous. Despite even this, Protestants will cite a list of verses claiming that God clearly grants righteousness, in a single act of justification, and the sinner is transformed. However, I would challenge them to see if the verses actually claim that God declares people righteous, rather than restores people to righteousness. It can be easy to impose your own preconditions onto the Biblical text. One represents a legal pardoning from God’s wrath, and the other reveals God’s restorative plan.

Throughout Jesus’s Earthly ministry, what does He do? He heals the sick! Not because being sick or injured was morally bad, but because Christ was revealing the restorative nature of God! In every case, Christ doesn’t just declare the people forgiven. He actually heals them and says, "Go and sin no more." (John 8:11).

Furthermore, in the New Testament, Paul routinely urges Christians to "live not according to the flesh, but of the Spirit.". Why? Because faith and salvation are not a one-time legal declaration! As Part 2 will reveal, it is about submission! Submitting to the Holy Spirit to be restored!

Sanctification: the Protestant Paradox

Lastly, despite Penal Substitution not providing a clear explanation of how Christ restores humanity, many Protestants assert that sanctification is the process of transformation. In this view, justification is a legal declaration, while sanctification serves as the natural fruit and evidence of genuine faith.

At first glance, this distinction appears reasonable. However, it introduces a paradox: if justification alone secures salvation, then sanctification should be unnecessary for one's saved status. A believer, already declared righteous, would theoretically remain in right standing with God regardless of personal growth in holiness.

Yet, many Protestants maintain that true believers will inevitably undergo sanctification, suggesting that inner transformation is an essential aspect of genuine faith. This stance implies that salvation encompasses more than a legal pronouncement; it necessitates real change within the individual.

This leads to a contradiction: if salvation is purely a legal declaration, sanctification should be irrelevant. However, if sanctification is necessary evidence of one's true faith, then salvation must involve more than declared righteousness—it requires actual transformation. This paradox within Penal Substitution highlights a major flaw: the separation of justification from the transformative process it purportedly guarantees. If justification alone secures salvation, then sanctification should have no real purpose. But if sanctification is necessary, then salvation must involve more than just a legal declaration—it must bring real transformation. Penal Substitution fails because it separates righteousness from the very change it claims will follow, leaving salvation as an external label rather than a true restoration of the soul.

In Conclusion

For Protestants, salvation often focuses on who is saved rather than how we are changed. Penal Substitution frames it as a legal declaration, with sanctification as an aftereffect. As a result, evangelization becomes about rescuing souls from hell rather than restoring them to communion with God. Yet Scripture presents salvation as more than avoiding damnation—it is about renewal, transformation, and becoming holy as God is holy.

God’s plan has always been restorative, but Penal Substitution reduces salvation to a legal transaction, treating justice as external to God rather than intrinsic to His nature. If salvation is truly about being made new, then how does Christ’s death accomplish transformation?

Part Two will explore these questions, presenting a model of salvation that doesn’t just declare righteousness—but restores it.