Ep 1232 ｜ John Mark Comer & the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Debate
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Summary
Popular evangelical author and former pastor John Mark Comer seems to deny penal substitutionary atonement. What does this mean and why does it really matter? We ve got all of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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Popular evangelical author and former pastor John Mark Comer seems to deny penal substitutionary
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atonement. What does this mean and why does it really, really matter? We've got all of this and
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more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to
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goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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All right. We pulled you guys on Instagram and we asked you, which two subjects do you want to hear
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about? And you guys chose PSA or penal substitutionary atonement. And if you're like,
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that sounds boring and I don't even know what any of those things mean. It's not boring. It's
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actually very fascinating. And it has to do with something that is going on in the Christian
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evangelical world right now. Before we get into that debate and most importantly, what the Bible
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has to say about what Christ actually accomplished on the cross, I just want to take a moment to talk
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about something cool that happened. Well, part of it's not cool and it's sad, but part of it is really
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cool. So the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just issued a decision. And this
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decision was about a case between an LGBTQ campus group on West Texas A&M and the university itself.
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The university banned drag queens and drag queen performances on campus. And then this LGBTQ group
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sued the university. And unfortunately, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said, no, you can't ban drag
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queens. This is a First Amendment violation. Well, the dissent in this, what I think was a terribly decided
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case, was written by a judge by the name of Judge James Ho, who is an amazing constitutionalist
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judge. And he wrote a very compelling dissent against the majority in this case. And on page 34
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of this decision within his dissent, he said this, he cites an argument, but quote, if we accept that
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people can change genders, or even if we don't, but, or even if we don't, but agree to be polite and
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call a man she, then why shouldn't she be allowed to play women's sports or bathe naked in an all
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women's space? Why shouldn't she be allowed to enter women's abuse houses or be transferred to
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a women's prison? Why accept one lie, not the whole thing? End quote. Allie Beth Stuckey,
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Toxic Empathy, pages 55 to 56. I just thought that that was such an honor that the book was included,
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that this quote was included, it was used in his larger argument that this is not just a siloed,
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isolated event. This, the acceptance of the idea that a man can dress up and actually become a she
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or become a woman infiltrates every part of a university or an institution and has an effect
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on other policies that affect the rights and the fairness and the privacy of other people. And so
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you're accepting one part of the lie by saying you must allow drag shows, that's going to affect
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all other parts of an institution as well. And I was very honored that Toxic Empathy was included in
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such a consequential case, even though it didn't go the direction that we wanted. And Judge James Ho
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has been discussed very often as on the shortlist for potential Supreme Court justices, should a
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Republican president get another pick? So I thought that that was awesome. And I'm just thankful to you
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guys that you have allowed Toxic Empathy to become such a conversation piece for so many people. This
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is not about me. It's really about what God does, but also just about us and the conversations that we
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have been having for a long time about the misuse and the weaponization of Christian compassion for
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nefarious, destructive, and even demonic means. So thank you guys. Thank you guys for your support,
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for how you've read the book, how you've talked about the book, how you've shared it, and just your
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support of this show too. It really does make an impact, and I just praise God for that.
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All right, let's get into this very important topic of penal substitutionary atonement. The reason
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we're talking about this now, this of course is not a new argument. It's been happening among
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Christians for a long time. It's because a very prominent evangelical pastor by the name of John
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Mark Comer, he posted on his Instagram story a picture of a book by Andrew Remington Rillera,
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and it's called Lamb of the Free, Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus's Death.
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And John Mark Comer wrote over his picture of this book that he posted,
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one of the most important academic books I've read in years. Next, I'll read rebuttals, but this seems
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to be the final biblical slash exegetical knockout blow to penal substitutionary atonement or PSA.
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Who would have guessed it would have come not from liberals, but from scholars of Leviticus.
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Highly recommend for your thoughtful consideration. Now, John Mark Comer is not just a random guy. He's
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got a lot of influence. He is the best-selling author of books like The Ruthless Elimination of
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Hurry. That's probably the one that you've heard of. Also, Practicing the Way, which is now the name
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of the ministry that he runs. He was a pastor for 20 years of a church out in Portland, and now he
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lives in LA running this ministry. But he is all about slowing down the pace of life. And some would
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argue he has waded into the realm of Eastern mysticism. So we'll talk more about who John Mark
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Comer actually is and what he really teaches. But more importantly, what is penal substitutionary
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atonement? Why is this an argument? And why does it really, really matter for Christians to get this
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Okay, let's talk a little bit more about who John Mark Comer is. I might just say
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JMC because we got Penal Substitutionary Atonement. We've got John Mark Comer. It's a lot. So JMC,
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PSA, let's go. JMC wrote this book several years ago, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. I have read
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this book. I think there are some good things in it. Now, I remember being thrown off. I think I read
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it maybe in 2020 or 2021. I remember being slightly thrown off because within the book, he says, you
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know, I live in Portland, and so I'm slightly sympathetic to socialism. That is not an exact
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word or exact phrasing, but he might have been a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but he was saying, look,
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I'm kind of, you know, I have the lean socialist at least a little bit living in this area of the
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country. And I just remember thinking, even something that is maybe considered a tongue-in-cheek
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aside or a little, you know, silly parenthetical part, I'm just thinking, okay, would you get away
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with saying, oh, you know, I'm just a little bit fascist? Would you get away? Would someone get away
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with saying that he's just a little bit Nazi? Of course not. But people don't see socialism and
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communism as evil as they see fascism and Nazism, and they should, because they are just as evil.
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Like, actually, communism has killed more people than fascism has. Communism is responsible for the
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brutal deaths, the starvation, the torture, the famine, the politically motivated murders of tens of
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millions of people just in the last 100 years alone. So when there was like a tongue-in-cheek joke
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about maybe at least a little bit subscribing to an ideology that is so disgusting and evil and
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murderous, I was like, okay, well, I can see a little bit of what is happening here. And that is so
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common in the evangelical world to just be a little bit socialist and just say you're a little bit
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social justice and you hate on Western civilization just a little bit to prove to people that you're
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some kind of rebellious radical. I just don't like it. I just don't like it. I don't think that we
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should pretend or even a little bit be a part of any kind of left-wing or progressive ideology that
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is so anti-God and anti-human, okay? So that was just one thing that is not the only thing that people
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have trouble with when it comes to John Mark Comer, and we'll get into that in just a little bit.
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So his book, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, it talks about the negative effects of a fast-paced,
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busy lifestyle, and he talks about going through this journey himself and how we can adopt a slower
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and simpler way of living to navigate the demands of modern life. A lot of good tools in there. I
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certainly don't think everything he wrote in there is wrong or bad. It's actually helpful in some ways.
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And then he also wrote the book Practicing the Way, a guide for following Jesus in the modern
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era. So he outlines the concept of a rule of life, a structured set of habits and practices modeled
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after the lifestyle of Jesus and his early followers. So this is kind of, again, going off
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of the idea that we should be setting rhythms for our life that are centered around Christ and what he
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has called us to, not the busy demands of everything else going on, which, of course, I agree with.
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Again, a little bit about him. 20 years, he pastor Bridgetown Church in Portland.
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Then he stepped down a few years ago, and he has been extremely influential when it comes to
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a lot of evangelical teaching. He's sold a lot of books, and a lot of people really like
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John Mark Comer. Now, a lot of people also have problems with John Mark Comer. So let's get into
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that just a little bit, just to kind of set us up for why we're even talking about this right now,
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because this was all over Christian X over the weekend. Pastor and author Gary Gilley writes
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about Comer's rise in popularity with young Christians, especially in Gen Z. He says he has
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tapped into the unrest, the emptiness, the confusion, and exhaustion that we all feel at times and which
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is escalating in our world, and he is offering seemingly fresh answers in appealing ways.
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Gilley points out that Comer's ideas mirrored the spiritual formation movement that was started
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by Richard Foster and Dallas Willard in the 1970s and 80s. It encouraged Protestants to adopt
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ancient Catholic and Orthodox mystical practices that were used by monks or early church figures,
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like contemplative prayer and solitude, aiming for a direct personal experience with God.
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There are the time-tested practical Christian disciplines that we're all familiar with,
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things like corporate and personal Bible study, worship, prayer, discipleship, and service.
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On the other hand, many of the leading voices, including this one, and the spiritual formation
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movement stress the need for more intuitive interpretations of spirituality, more experiential.
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They encourage believers to incorporate a wide variety of extra-biblical spiritual practices,
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such as contemplative prayer, silence, meditation, not just meditating on God's word, but the emptying
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of the mind, creative expression, and yoga. So I would say that a lot of this is kind of a
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synthesis of Eastern mysticism and Christianity. Gilley notes similarities between Comer and emergent
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church leaders like Rob Bell. Now, Rob Bell is just an out-and-out heretic at this point,
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but he said that there's crossover, highlighting that Comer's opening quote in Practicing the Way,
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may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi, appears in Rob Bell's short film Dust and his book
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Velvet Elvis, and he suggests that Comer repackages Rob Bell's ideas for a new generation. Now, I am sure
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that John Mark Comer would probably have his own disputes with that description, but just trying
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to describe what a lot of people have issues with. In a 2011 article, Evangelical Theologians
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Al Mohler, whom we've had on the show several times, he wrote about Rob Bell's controversy and the
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emerging church movement controversy by saying that that's a new form of cultural Christianity,
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and that he's playing fast and loose with the gospel. Rob Bell is not John Mark Comer at this point,
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and that he is purveying false teachings, and criticized Rob Bell for towing the line of universalism,
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which is absolutely what Rob Bell did. So, some worry that John Mark Comer is going in the same
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direction. Reformed Baptist theologian Tim Challies critiques JMC's Practicing the Way for
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promoting mysticism through spiritual practices that involve, quote, an expectation of receiving original
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and unmediated revelation from God, which we know that the revelation, the special revelation that
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God has given us is through his word. Of course, the Holy Spirit can still prompt us, can still convict us,
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can still compel us to say and to move in the direction that God wants us to go, but we are not
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going to uncover new, previously undiscovered truths that are not in Scripture. Challies argues that Comer
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redefines the gospel that he moves away from the traditional evangelical understanding of penal
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substitutionary atonement. So, even in this book, some people have been talking about John Mark Comer's
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evolution for a while, and would probably argue that his announcement that he doesn't love PSA or
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seems to not agree with PSA is not that much of a surprise. Challies states that in his book that
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John Mark Comer especially abominates the gospel of street preachers and its message of repent of
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your sin so you won't go to hell. He suggests, Challies suggests, that Comer's gospel is instead
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live like Jesus and live for Jesus so other people can become interested in Jesus. Comer argues the
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gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to
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all through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and the gift of the
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spirit. Jesus has saved, is saved, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus,
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we can enter his kingdom and into the inner life of God himself. Now, what I think is interesting about
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that description, that particular description of the gospel, is that there is no mention of what
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Jesus is actually saving us from. And what is the means by which all of these things are saving us?
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Of course, we would argue by grace through faith. We are being saved from our sin and from hell.
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Now, I'm not saying that John Mark Comer has never said that, but I do think it's fair to look at a
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sentence that starts with the gospel is and expect there to be a full picture of what the gospel
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actually is. Challies points out that Comer's preference for terms like apprentice over disciple
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and the way over Christianity kind of distances the book from traditional Christian terminology.
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And then I would agree with that. Baptist pastor Dan Schreiner says that Comer's work may be
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appealing for the same reason that self-help books are. Works righteousness is the default
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setting of the human heart, he argues. Comer emphasizes Jesus as a healer and a teacher rather
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than a substitute. This is a theme that many argue we see throughout his books, who takes the punishment
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rather than a substitute, who takes the punishment for sin and focuses on confession and surrender
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without mentioning very often repentance. This is a video of John Mark Comer from 2021.
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And he says that the gospels are the gospel and that the evangelical idea of the gospel is actually
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not preached in the gospels that we have. Here's that too.
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My understanding of the gospel is anytime I preach Jesus, anytime I announce anything about Jesus,
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his birth, his death, his incarnation, his teachings, his miracles, his parables, his resurrection,
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his ascension to the right hand of the Father, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the great tradition
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of discipleship, thousands of years old, in his name, I am preaching the gospel of Jesus.
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And if you search for some of the most popular summaries of the gospel in the American church,
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such as what Dr. Gary Beshears calls the John 3.16 gospel, which is basically you're a sinner
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going to hell, but Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you can go to heaven when you die.
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If you search for that in the gospel in front of you, the gospel in front of you, you are hard-pressed
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to find anything remotely close to that in any of the four gospels of Jesus.
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The book of John is, John 3.16 is one of the gospels of Jesus. And so we actually see it right there.
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That's why so often Christians encourage non-Christians or new Christians to start with the book of John
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because we actually do see the gospel articulated so clearly. And you know, it's just interesting
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because right there you see the same line of thinking that red-letter Christians, so-called Christians,
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have, which is that we can separate the gospels and separate Jesus's word from the epistles,
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and that the epistles somehow carry less authority than the gospels themselves. But
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that would mean that if you believe that, then you don't believe that the entire Bible is the
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inerrant, infallible word of God. Because if you believe that, then the epistles, which expound
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upon that gospel message that we read in one of the gospels, John 3.16, are just as authoritative,
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or just as much God's words as anything that Jesus, who is God, also said in the gospel
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accounts. And so you kind of see hints of what I would call deconstruction in the things he writes
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and says. Now, I'm sure defenders of him would say, well, that's not fair. I would say he very much
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wants to push back against what he sees as the Americanization of Christianity and what he sees
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as Western civilization's perversion of the gospel by trying to introduce subversive ideas within
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Christianity that he actually calls ancient ideas and the original ideas of Jesus that I would argue
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are just kind of the basic tenets of theological liberalism. All right, we'll get into more of
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goodranchers.com slash Allie, code Allie. All right. So a lot of people weren't actually surprised when
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John Mark Comer posted this about this book, The Lamb of the Free, recovering the varied
00:24:24.220
sacrificial understandings of Jesus's death. What is this book? So it argues that penal
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substitutionary atonement is actually not supported by the New Testament. And that basically means
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penal means punishment. Substitutionary means taking the place of. And atonement, as we'll get into
00:24:44.280
in a minute, means reconciliation or unification or paying for for the purpose of reconciliation
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and unification. And so this book denies that Jesus took our place on the cross and carried our
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punishment and paid the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross. This book denies that. He suggests
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that Jesus's death is better understood through a participatory framework, not a substitutionary
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framework. He argues. So this is kind of the basic line. And actually, one of you said that you went to
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John Mark Comer's old church recently over the summer, and you actually heard this line. I cannot
00:25:25.460
confirm that, but that is what one of you messaged me. That he argues that Jesus died, this author,
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ahead of us, not instead of us. So that Jesus died, he argues, ahead of us to invite people into
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union with him, union in suffering, union in sacrifice, rather than dying instead of us to
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absorb and take on our punishment. And this particular author looks at the entire Levitical
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system that we see in the Old Testament and says that Jesus's death is a continuation of the Levitical
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system. And in the Levitical system, we don't actually see this idea of substitutionary atonement.
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And so I think this person and maybe John Mark Comer would say, well, this is a new American or
00:26:17.720
Western idea. This is a more modern idea. This is not originally what Jesus's death meant. And I just
00:26:24.340
want to remind you before we get into the rest of this, and we'll get into John Mark Comer's
00:26:29.480
clarification because he did post later about what he actually meant in this, but I just want to read
00:26:34.320
you again so that we keep in mind what John Mark Comer actually said about this book that denies that
00:26:39.760
Jesus took our punishment on the cross. John Mark Comer said, one of the most important academic
00:26:44.540
books I've read in years. He said he'll read rebuttals, but this seems to be the knockout blow
00:26:49.700
to penal substitutionary atonement. He said it didn't come from liberals, that's what he used,
00:26:55.840
but scholars of Leviticus. And he said, highly recommend. To me, that reads as an endorsement of
00:27:04.340
the idea that Jesus did not die in our place, taking our punishment for sin. So what is penal
00:27:10.840
substitutionary atonement? And why would anyone have a hard time with it? Why would anyone disagree
00:27:17.300
with it? So this is according to Ligonier. This is R.C. Sproul's theological ministry. Penal
00:27:22.820
substitutionary atonement teaches that Jesus Christ took the punishment for humanity's sins
00:27:27.960
by dying on the cross. So acting as our substitute to satisfy God's just wrath against sin. God's
00:27:35.580
holiness demands that sin be punished as it violates his perfect law. But his love provided Jesus to bear
00:27:44.280
this penalty in place of sinners. We read in Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift
00:27:53.480
of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We read throughout Romans, we read throughout Galatians
00:28:00.420
that the reason for the law was the existence of sin. The reason for sacrifice, the reason for cleansing,
00:28:06.940
the reason for ceremonies in the Old Testament was so that people could be made right with God.
00:28:14.740
But Jesus, fulfilling the law, became our ultimate and final sacrifice on our behalf.
00:28:23.160
So that we no longer have to kill animals. We no longer have to make sacrifices to God.
00:28:28.720
Jesus became our sacrifice and God has ordained the means by which his sacrifice has saved us.
00:28:34.720
And that is by grace through faith in Christ's death and sacrifice. It is the belief that Christ's
00:28:42.140
death was a legal transaction where he endured the penalty deserved by humans, allowing God to forgive
00:28:48.300
sinners without compromising his justice. Romans 3.25-26, whom God put forward, Jesus, whom God put
00:28:55.560
forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness
00:29:02.560
because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at
00:29:08.420
the present time so that he might be the just might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith
00:29:16.640
in Jesus. So we read this language, justify, propitiation. We read that Jesus is our advocate,
00:29:26.740
that Satan is the accuser. So all of this, we see this very legal language throughout Scripture,
00:29:32.900
that Jesus has become our punishment, that he also has become our advocate, that he has justified us
00:29:41.900
before the Father. He has paid what we owed, the punishment that we deserved for our sin on our
00:29:49.200
behalf, giving us a clean slate, not only giving us the mercy to not be punished, but also the grace
00:29:55.640
to spend eternal life with Christ. By taking on humanity's sin, PSA posits, Jesus fulfilled the
00:30:03.100
requirements of God's law, making it possible for believers to be declared righteous before God.
00:30:08.700
2 Corinthians 5.21, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that we might become the
00:30:16.220
righteousness of God. So the atonement is applied to those who trust in Christ, who receive forgiveness
00:30:23.120
and reconciliation with God through faith in his sacrificial death. PSA emphasizes that Christ's
00:30:29.700
sacrifice was sufficient to cover all sins, ensuring that believers are freed from guilt
00:30:35.540
and restored to a right relationship with God. Before he died, theologian R.C. Sproul wrote this,
00:30:43.360
Christ's supreme achievement on the cross is that he placated the wrath of God,
00:30:47.720
which would burn against us were we not covered by the sacrifice of Christ.
00:30:51.760
Yes and amen, if that doesn't just make you want to rejoice and cry.
00:30:56.720
So if somebody argues against placation, so placate means to satisfy,
00:31:02.740
or the idea of Christ satisfying the wrath of God, be alert because the gospel is at stake.
00:31:09.040
This is about the essence of salvation, that as people who are covered by the atonement,
00:31:14.080
we are redeemed from the supreme danger to which any person is exposed. That word atonement literally
00:31:22.760
means at-one-ment, to bring together, to reconcile. We read in scripture that we are dead in our sin
00:31:30.840
apart from Christ. We are actually under the influence of the prince of the power of the air,
00:31:34.960
the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. That is what we read in Ephesians 2,
00:31:39.560
that is Satan himself, and therefore we are enemies of God before Christ. What does Christ
00:31:44.540
do? We also read in Ephesians 2 and 3, he reconciles us to God. So we are no longer strangers
00:31:49.680
and aliens, but we become saints and members of the household of God. We become brothers and sisters
00:31:55.360
within Christ, and we become heirs to God's inheritance. We become friends of God. We become
00:32:03.000
sons and daughters of God. We get to enter into his kingdom because of the sacrifice that Christ
00:32:09.580
made on our behalf and the friendship, the reconciliation that we get in that.
00:32:15.220
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Penal substitutionary atonement is affirmed by many of the church fathers. It was emphasized heavily
00:33:53.920
during the Reformation by reformers like John Calvin and Martin Luther. If we go back to some
00:34:01.400
of the church fathers, like Justin, the martyr of the second century, he wrote,
00:34:05.500
But if then the father of all wished his Christ for the whole human family to take upon him the
00:34:12.040
curses of all, why do you argue about him who submitted to suffer these things according to the
00:34:16.760
father's will as if he were accursed? And do not rather bewail yourselves. For although his father
00:34:22.820
caused him to suffer these things on behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as
00:34:28.480
an obedience to the will of God. He connects Christ's death to Old Testament prophecies
00:34:32.520
like Isaiah 53. And let's just read Isaiah 53 because I think that's a really important argument
00:34:42.260
in favor of penal substitutionary atonement. And you guys who have been watching this podcast for a long
00:34:49.540
time know that one of the most difficult things that I do is trying to talk at the same time that
00:34:56.180
I am looking up on Bible Gateway, a particular passage, and yet that is what I am doing.
00:35:02.200
Okay, Isaiah 53, 7. He, this is a prophecy about Jesus, the Messiah. He was oppressed and he was
00:35:10.340
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that
00:35:15.620
before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
00:35:21.180
And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living,
00:35:25.140
stricken for the transgression of my people. And then verse 10,
00:35:30.300
yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an
00:35:36.040
offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. And he took on our suffering.
00:35:43.320
He took on our sin. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken,
00:35:50.140
smitten by God and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our
00:35:55.800
iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement or punishment that brought us peace. And by his
00:36:02.200
wounds, we are healed. It seems to me that Isaiah 53 is a really good support for penal substitutionary
00:36:10.140
atonement. John Calvin wrote a very similar thing in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.
00:36:17.280
Another principal part of our reconciliation with God was that man who had lost himself
00:36:21.700
by his disobedience should, by way of remedy, oppose to it obedience, satisfy the justice of God
00:36:29.620
and pay the penalty of sin. Therefore, our Lord came forth, that very man, adopted the person of Adam
00:36:38.180
and assumed his name. So I know a lot of this is confusing because it's been translated. And of course,
00:36:43.320
it's very old English, what has been translated of it. So it can be a little confusing there. Martin
00:36:49.100
Luther agrees. As I said, many of the reformers and many of the church fathers agree. Okay. Why are
00:36:55.660
people critical of penal substitutionary atonement? What could be an article against it? There is an
00:37:02.900
organization, a resource called Catholic Stand. They raised some of the most common objections to
00:37:08.860
penal substitutionary atonement. They argue that PSA misrepresents God's justice
00:37:14.420
as punitive, neglecting its restorative aim to heal humanity's relationship with God. This ties to
00:37:21.480
overemphasizing wrath, overshadowing God's love shown in 1 John 4, 8. That is God is love. Anyone who does
00:37:30.940
not love does not know God because God is love. They argue that PSA implies unjust punishment of the
00:37:36.420
innocent. Punishing the sinless Jesus for humanity's sins is seen as unjust, conflicting with the idea
00:37:43.660
that only the guilty should be punished. This aligns with the objection that punishing the innocent is
00:37:48.480
unfair, unlike biblical justice, which of course is always fair. They also argue that PSA suggests
00:37:54.400
division in the Trinity. This is a big one that people highlight. That PSA implies the father's wrath
00:38:00.380
conflicts with the son's sacrifice, undermining the unity of God's nature. This relates to
00:38:06.340
a claim that I see a lot of so-called progressive Christians make, that God allowing his son to die
00:38:12.000
on the cross is cosmic child abuse. And they say, well, in John 10, 30, Jesus says, I and the father
00:38:20.360
are one. Catholic Answers, this is a Catholic apologist who writes this, and talking about pouring
00:38:27.620
divine wrath upon the son, or God being unable to even look at Jesus as he stood as sin-bearer,
00:38:34.020
you inevitably end up pitting the first person of the Trinity against the second person of the Trinity.
00:38:39.680
Of course, I would disagree with that when you look at John 3, 16, that God sent his own son
00:38:46.700
to die for us, that we may not perish, but have eternal life. Of course, when Jesus is praying to the
00:38:54.060
father in the garden of Gethsemane, when he is saying, please take this cup from me, I don't want
00:38:59.720
this cup of suffering, but not my will, but your will be done. I would certainly say that that is
00:39:05.300
mysterious, but because we know the Trinity can't be separated, and because we know that these things
00:39:10.700
actually happen, as Jesus prayed to the father, Jesus talked to the father, Jesus said that he does
00:39:15.460
the father's will, then we have to be able to reconcile that seeming mystery there with the truth
00:39:24.980
of God's word. So just because it seems that PSA separates them because Jesus suffers as God's wrath
00:39:31.260
is satisfied, doesn't mean that they're actually separated just as they aren't separated in other
00:39:35.360
parts of the gospels where Jesus is communicating to God the father. Now, those who are anti-PSA would
00:39:41.560
also say it's a later invention. They would say it undermines human responsibility, and they would
00:39:46.820
also say that Christ fully bears sin's penalty—or they say that this idea that he bears sin's penalty
00:39:52.780
on our behalf could suggest human moral effort is unnecessary, reducing accountability. Progressives,
00:40:00.640
many of them take on this view as well. Elisa Childers say that they would describe this as a vengeful
00:40:06.900
father punishing his son for an offense that he has not actually committed. So that is one idea. And
00:40:15.020
then the thrust of the idea that is in this book that John Mark Comer recommended and put his stamp of
00:40:24.840
approval on is that the Levitical law doesn't talk about substitutionary atonement, that these cleansing
00:40:34.240
laws and that these sacrifices were made were not the lamb taking on the punishment of sin, he would
00:40:41.760
argue, but that Jesus' death represents some kind of unity in suffering and unity in sacrifice, an example
00:40:52.300
for us in not necessarily taking on our punishment. And this is what that particular author, that JMC,
00:41:01.720
seems to be endorsing, argues. He pushes back against a totalizing understanding of Levitical sacrifice
00:41:09.140
as atonement in favor of a nuanced understanding of each category of sacrifice, like non-atoning
00:41:14.820
sacrifices. He argues that this involves the laity eating the sacrificial elements and serve to attract
00:41:20.620
the divine presence and offer humans a means of communion with Yahweh. The atoning sacrifices serve to
00:41:27.300
ensure Israel's ritual purity so they are capable of entering the divine presence. Yet, Rolera argues
00:41:34.260
that these atoning sacrifices do not have a substitutionary element and serve only to cleanse
00:41:40.480
Israel of ritual impurity. Moral impurity, he argues, is a separate matter beyond the scope of the
00:41:47.500
sacrificial system, requiring an extra sacrificial divine act to resolve it. Thus, Rolera posits in the
00:41:54.800
remaining four chapters of the book that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection serve as this extra
00:42:00.240
sacrificial divine act that cleanses moral impurity. Jesus' death, he argues, is an act of solidarity,
00:42:07.860
not substitution. To support this, Rolera connects the Last Supper to Passover as a well-being sacrifice
00:42:15.040
that celebrates an act of divine deliverance and moral purification that establishes a covenant,
00:42:20.940
not a substitutionary death that functions juridicially to forgive sin. As such, Rolera concludes Christians
00:42:28.900
should comprehend Jesus' death as a demonstration that the powers of death are defeated and a paradigmatic
00:42:36.040
act for his followers to emulate. In essence, a fusion of Christus victor, so Christ as the victor,
00:42:42.560
the defeater of death, and the moral exemplar models of atonement.
00:42:48.000
Um, now this reviewer says, had Rolera simply argued that penal substitution is not the dominant
00:42:55.040
metaphor for discussions of the nature of the atonement, his thesis would be much more compelling.
00:43:00.040
This is this person's opinion. However, the strident nature of his claim that penal substitution has no
00:43:05.400
exegetical support seriously weakens the veracity of his argument. While his four-chapter discussion of
00:43:10.440
the sacrificial system in Leviticus is excellent and helpfully forwards the charge that totalizing the
00:43:16.320
entire sacrificial system under the umbrella of substitutionary death is inappropriate,
00:43:20.680
the fact remains that several Old and New Testament passages contain substitutionary language.
00:43:26.560
And we'll get into those passages in just one second. Let me go ahead and pause,
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Okay, so what does the Bible actually have to say? So we already talked about some of it, of what the
00:44:42.300
Bible has to say in support of penal substitutionary atonement, but we can actually go all the way back
00:44:47.940
to Genesis. Genesis 2, 16 through 17. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
00:44:53.640
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
00:44:58.020
you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. In the Old Covenant,
00:45:03.920
people would lay their hands on an animal they were sacrificing, identifying with it. Then the
00:45:09.180
animal was killed. This showed that the person's sin and guilt were passed on to the animal. The
00:45:13.580
animal took the punishment the person deserved, allowing them to live. That is exactly what the
00:45:17.740
author of that book argued against. He argues that that's not what that meant at all, but the argument
00:45:22.420
in support of PSA asserts that it is. Leviticus 4, 15. And the elders of the congregation shall lay
00:45:28.720
their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and the bull shall be killed before the Lord.
00:45:33.160
The animal sacrifices in the Old Covenant couldn't actually remove sins before God. As Hebrews 10,
00:45:38.720
4 tells us, they were just symbols that pointed to the true sacrifice, Jesus Christ's death on the
00:45:45.220
cross. The ultimate sacrifice where Jesus took the punishment for our sins was hinted at throughout the
00:45:49.780
Old Covenant sacrifices and very clearly foretold as we read in Isaiah 53. And then we read, for example,
00:45:57.960
in Mark 10, 45, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a
00:46:05.860
ransom for many. We've got Romans 4, 25, that Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for
00:46:12.480
our justification. Hebrews 9, 22, indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and
00:46:19.020
without the shedding of blood. There is no forgiveness of sins. And according to the
00:46:26.120
critics of PSA, this shows God as a bully. But we actually read in John 3, 16, that it is for love
00:46:34.380
that Jesus was sent by God to die for our sins. And of course, we know that everything that God does
00:46:43.420
is done in love. We read this from Nine Marks. Nine Marks is a ministry. Prior to Jesus's wrath-bearing
00:46:52.640
death for our sins, sinners hated God and God hated them. This is why Paul says we were enemies prior to
00:46:58.480
our becoming reconciled to God through the death of his son. But because Jesus died for our sins and
00:47:03.700
took upon himself our wrath that we deserved, the weak and ungodly sinners and enemies of God now
00:47:09.380
experienced soteriological peace, which has exonerated us before the Father. Now, John Mark
00:47:17.900
Comer did clarify his position, to be fair. He said that my main point in posting about Lamb of the Free
00:47:28.780
was to recommend this provocative book. He said that it was highly insightful. I learned a lot. He said
00:47:35.120
he disagreed with Aton. He says that this author completely denies all substitution. And then John
00:47:43.580
Mark Comer says that that seems untenable biblically for me. And then he said, that said, there are a
00:47:50.160
growing number of conservative and Orthodox who struggled to map some of the modern Western ideas
00:47:55.240
of atonement into the New Testament and most of church history. He said, I believe the Father and the
00:48:01.460
Son and the Holy Spirit were working together to save and redeem us through Jesus's life, death,
00:48:06.880
and resurrection, all motivated by mercy and love while still maintaining justice. Jesus has done
00:48:13.540
for us what we could never, ever, ever do for ourselves. He said that he brought the defeat of
00:48:18.900
Satan and death, the forgiveness of sins, the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, incorporation into
00:48:24.160
Christ and through Christ. Okay. All of that is well and good. I still think, though, that what he
00:48:30.380
originally said seems to be a ringing endorsement of this idea when he said that that book that he
00:48:36.760
recommended is the knockout blow to penal substitutionary atonement. I would actually argue
00:48:42.240
that that is exactly what John Mark Comer believes. Now, maybe you agree with him. Maybe you believe that
00:48:47.360
he can still hold on to the gospel and deny penal substitutionary atonement. But I would listen to people
00:48:58.800
like this who have spoken up about the dangers of denying this and the path that it can go down.
00:49:06.780
I would listen to people like Andrew Walker or Wesley Hough or Denny Burke who have all spoken up about
00:49:14.620
the dangers of denying penal substitutionary atonement. Elisa Childers, whom we're having
00:49:19.440
at Share the Arrows, an amazing apologist. And we'll end on those responses in just a second because I
00:49:26.480
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Andrew Walker, an author that we have had on and a professor. The denial of penal substitutionary
00:50:23.860
or substitution is a gateway for many other nefarious mishandlings of God's Word. If you
00:50:29.420
can make the text not say what the text teaches, you can make the text do anything you want.
00:50:35.820
Scripture is not a wax nose. John Mark Comer is on a bad trajectory and to be avoided. He is
00:50:43.380
a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We've got Wesley Huff, who was on
00:50:48.560
Joe Rogan's show, who's been on several shows sharing the gospel, talking about the reliability
00:50:56.380
my two cents, everything that is true about all the other atonement theories, moral influence,
00:51:01.880
ransom, Christ is victor, satisfaction, governmental scapegoat, etc. is true in penal substitutionary
00:51:09.300
atonement. PSA merely remains the most biblically robust, consistent, and true of all theories.
00:51:17.580
Scott Anial says, doctrine to die for, penal substitutionary atonement. Denny Burke, who is
00:51:25.560
also a seminary professor, said that this is a hill to die on. He said that we should run as far
00:51:31.000
away as we can from this false teaching. He says, relish what Jesus accomplished for us on the
00:51:37.020
cross. Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,
00:51:43.340
for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So that looks like right there that Jesus
00:51:49.120
took on our curse and took on our punishment because of our sin. Romans 8.3, for what the law
00:51:53.880
could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful
00:51:59.080
flesh. And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Romans 3.25-26, God put Christ
00:52:06.260
Jesus forward as a propitiation through faith in his blood in order to demonstrate his righteousness
00:52:11.620
because in the forbearance of God, he passed over sins which were previously committed. He set forth
00:52:18.100
as a propitiation in order to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time so that he might
00:52:23.200
be just and the one who justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. We read that passage earlier and it
00:52:29.940
is worth reading again. I would argue that penal substitutionary atonement is biblical and it is the
00:52:36.640
most biblical view of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross. And I do agree that denying penal substitutionary
00:52:43.340
atonement seems to lead the way to the denial of the gospel. I'm not arguing that JMC is there yet and I
00:52:51.180
hope that he doesn't ever get there, but I do think its original post was a ringing endorsement of this
00:52:57.940
anti-PSA theory. I'm personally not mollified by the caveats that he gave later, but the more
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important thing is that we are understanding the gospel, understanding Isaiah 53, the biblical prophecies,
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and all of the signs and the signposts that led to the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ
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who died on behalf of our sins. All right, that's all we've got time for today. We will be back here on Friday.