No confession is inerrant; Reformed Christians are supposed to be those who seek to be constantly reformed according to the Word of God - and that includes our confessions as well.

[I'm often called a Deviant Calvinist] but that only goes to underline the point I'm trying to make about the need to broaden our account of the tradition!

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not rubbishing penal substitution. But there are other options that have been advocated by Reformed thinkers of the past.

God shows us in Christ what he would have to do if he were to punish us for our sins.

That is the great contribution of Reformed thinking to the Christian church: theology for a life well-lived.

The Reformed tradition at the beginning of the twenty-first century is different as a consequence of this - and different in nontrivial ways. Some may scoff at this, saying that such "developments" don't represent Reformed thought. But by what standard? Perhaps by the Westminster Confession. But this is only one Reformed confession, and it was only ever a subordinate standard.

Sometimes we can lose the wood for the trees. Some specific issues dealt with in the book [Saving Calvinism]: the scope of election (who is saved?); the nature of the atonement (do we have to hold to penal substitution if we're Reformed?); the scope of the atonement (for whom did Christ die?); whether we have to hold to some sort of theological determinism (God ordains all that comes to pass).