From TwoCopperCoins:
Since the days of the Apostle Paul, men have written concerning the atonement of Jesus Christ. If the Lord wills, I will also. As I write, we live in days where an unswerving commitment to right doctrine in general seems rare. I say seems because quite apparently, we’ve no idea how many of saving faith are out there who have right understandings of the atonement of Christ in particular, nor of biblical truth in general. I suppose such statistics are useless. Regardless, we live in times where uncertainty regarding truth is favored more than solidified truth revealed in Scripture. It is this favoring of uncertainty which has modern-day evangelicalism in such a mess.
One thing is for certain. Christians need to study the atonement of Jesus Christ for the entirety of their lives. Of this I am convinced. I am convinced because it is the story of the Bible. It is the grand old story that begins in Genesis and culminates in the Revelation of John. I take that back. It is not a story. It is truth. Hard, glorious, revealed truth from God Almighty to mankind. It is truth that will only be revealed to the elect unto salvation and denied to those souls who have been passed over by the good pleasure of our Sovereign God.
Read more here.
My elders teach that the central, essential truth of the faith is the penal, substitutionary atonement of Christ Jesus. If one has that wrong, everything else fails.
And yet, so many who profess Christ know next to nothing about what was accomplished on Calvary. They think Christ was abandoned for a time, teaching that Hell is to be abandoned by God the Father – not realizing Christ took the full wrath of God for the sins of the elect, just as Hell will be sinners taking the wrath of God for eternity in the futile attempt to pay for their own sins.