Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1232 ｜ John Mark Comer & the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Debate

00:00:00.960 Popular evangelical author and former pastor John Mark Comer seems to deny penal substitutionary

00:00:09.260 atonement. What does this mean and why does it really, really matter? We've got all of this and

00:00:16.580 more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to

00:00:20.940 goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.

00:00:30.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.

00:00:39.620 All right. We pulled you guys on Instagram and we asked you, which two subjects do you want to hear

00:00:44.900 about? And you guys chose PSA or penal substitutionary atonement. And if you're like,

00:00:51.920 that sounds boring and I don't even know what any of those things mean. It's not boring. It's

00:00:56.820 actually very fascinating. And it has to do with something that is going on in the Christian

00:01:02.040 evangelical world right now. Before we get into that debate and most importantly, what the Bible

00:01:08.060 has to say about what Christ actually accomplished on the cross, I just want to take a moment to talk

00:01:15.620 about something cool that happened. Well, part of it's not cool and it's sad, but part of it is really

00:01:21.480 cool. So the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just issued a decision. And this

00:01:29.940 decision was about a case between an LGBTQ campus group on West Texas A&M and the university itself.

00:01:41.740 The university banned drag queens and drag queen performances on campus. And then this LGBTQ group 1.00

00:01:50.460 sued the university. And unfortunately, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said, no, you can't ban drag

00:02:00.900 queens. This is a First Amendment violation. Well, the dissent in this, what I think was a terribly decided 0.99

00:02:08.320 case, was written by a judge by the name of Judge James Ho, who is an amazing constitutionalist

00:02:16.540 judge. And he wrote a very compelling dissent against the majority in this case. And on page 34

00:02:25.480 of this decision within his dissent, he said this, he cites an argument, but quote, if we accept that

00:02:34.140 people can change genders, or even if we don't, but, or even if we don't, but agree to be polite and

00:02:41.080 call a man she, then why shouldn't she be allowed to play women's sports or bathe naked in an all 1.00

00:02:47.240 women's space? Why shouldn't she be allowed to enter women's abuse houses or be transferred to 1.00

00:02:52.820 a women's prison? Why accept one lie, not the whole thing? End quote. Allie Beth Stuckey, 0.97

00:02:59.100 Toxic Empathy, pages 55 to 56. I just thought that that was such an honor that the book was included,

00:03:07.440 that this quote was included, it was used in his larger argument that this is not just a siloed,

00:03:15.360 isolated event. This, the acceptance of the idea that a man can dress up and actually become a she 0.96

00:03:23.320 or become a woman infiltrates every part of a university or an institution and has an effect 0.99

00:03:30.620 on other policies that affect the rights and the fairness and the privacy of other people. And so

00:03:37.420 you're accepting one part of the lie by saying you must allow drag shows, that's going to affect

00:03:42.840 all other parts of an institution as well. And I was very honored that Toxic Empathy was included in

00:03:49.520 such a consequential case, even though it didn't go the direction that we wanted. And Judge James Ho

00:03:55.360 has been discussed very often as on the shortlist for potential Supreme Court justices, should a

00:04:03.760 Republican president get another pick? So I thought that that was awesome. And I'm just thankful to you

00:04:10.600 guys that you have allowed Toxic Empathy to become such a conversation piece for so many people. This

00:04:18.180 is not about me. It's really about what God does, but also just about us and the conversations that we

00:04:25.520 have been having for a long time about the misuse and the weaponization of Christian compassion for

00:04:32.260 nefarious, destructive, and even demonic means. So thank you guys. Thank you guys for your support,

00:04:38.500 for how you've read the book, how you've talked about the book, how you've shared it, and just your

00:04:43.060 support of this show too. It really does make an impact, and I just praise God for that.

00:04:49.140 All right, let's get into this very important topic of penal substitutionary atonement. The reason

00:04:56.040 we're talking about this now, this of course is not a new argument. It's been happening among

00:05:00.540 Christians for a long time. It's because a very prominent evangelical pastor by the name of John

00:05:07.280 Mark Comer, he posted on his Instagram story a picture of a book by Andrew Remington Rillera,

00:05:16.520 and it's called Lamb of the Free, Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus's Death.

00:05:24.440 And John Mark Comer wrote over his picture of this book that he posted,

00:05:31.180 one of the most important academic books I've read in years. Next, I'll read rebuttals, but this seems

00:05:37.760 to be the final biblical slash exegetical knockout blow to penal substitutionary atonement or PSA.

00:05:44.700 Who would have guessed it would have come not from liberals, but from scholars of Leviticus.

00:05:53.060 Highly recommend for your thoughtful consideration. Now, John Mark Comer is not just a random guy. He's

00:06:00.420 got a lot of influence. He is the best-selling author of books like The Ruthless Elimination of

00:06:06.000 Hurry. That's probably the one that you've heard of. Also, Practicing the Way, which is now the name

00:06:11.020 of the ministry that he runs. He was a pastor for 20 years of a church out in Portland, and now he

00:06:20.480 lives in LA running this ministry. But he is all about slowing down the pace of life. And some would

00:06:28.000 argue he has waded into the realm of Eastern mysticism. So we'll talk more about who John Mark

00:06:34.760 Comer actually is and what he really teaches. But more importantly, what is penal substitutionary

00:06:40.440 atonement? Why is this an argument? And why does it really, really matter for Christians to get this 0.99

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00:10:25.480 Okay, let's talk a little bit more about who John Mark Comer is. I might just say

00:10:30.320 JMC because we got Penal Substitutionary Atonement. We've got John Mark Comer. It's a lot. So JMC,

00:10:38.080 PSA, let's go. JMC wrote this book several years ago, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. I have read

00:10:46.980 this book. I think there are some good things in it. Now, I remember being thrown off. I think I read

00:10:52.960 it maybe in 2020 or 2021. I remember being slightly thrown off because within the book, he says, you

00:11:01.340 know, I live in Portland, and so I'm slightly sympathetic to socialism. That is not an exact

00:11:07.360 word or exact phrasing, but he might have been a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but he was saying, look,

00:11:13.100 I'm kind of, you know, I have the lean socialist at least a little bit living in this area of the

00:11:18.340 country. And I just remember thinking, even something that is maybe considered a tongue-in-cheek

00:11:23.780 aside or a little, you know, silly parenthetical part, I'm just thinking, okay, would you get away

00:11:32.300 with saying, oh, you know, I'm just a little bit fascist? Would you get away? Would someone get away

00:11:37.840 with saying that he's just a little bit Nazi? Of course not. But people don't see socialism and

00:11:43.820 communism as evil as they see fascism and Nazism, and they should, because they are just as evil.

00:11:50.680 Like, actually, communism has killed more people than fascism has. Communism is responsible for the

00:11:56.700 brutal deaths, the starvation, the torture, the famine, the politically motivated murders of tens of

00:12:05.440 millions of people just in the last 100 years alone. So when there was like a tongue-in-cheek joke

00:12:11.500 about maybe at least a little bit subscribing to an ideology that is so disgusting and evil and

00:12:18.880 murderous, I was like, okay, well, I can see a little bit of what is happening here. And that is so

00:12:24.720 common in the evangelical world to just be a little bit socialist and just say you're a little bit

00:12:30.960 social justice and you hate on Western civilization just a little bit to prove to people that you're

00:12:37.000 some kind of rebellious radical. I just don't like it. I just don't like it. I don't think that we

00:12:41.720 should pretend or even a little bit be a part of any kind of left-wing or progressive ideology that

00:12:48.460 is so anti-God and anti-human, okay? So that was just one thing that is not the only thing that people

00:12:54.140 have trouble with when it comes to John Mark Comer, and we'll get into that in just a little bit.

00:12:59.100 So his book, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, it talks about the negative effects of a fast-paced,

00:13:05.120 busy lifestyle, and he talks about going through this journey himself and how we can adopt a slower

00:13:11.520 and simpler way of living to navigate the demands of modern life. A lot of good tools in there. I

00:13:16.840 certainly don't think everything he wrote in there is wrong or bad. It's actually helpful in some ways.

00:13:23.000 And then he also wrote the book Practicing the Way, a guide for following Jesus in the modern

00:13:26.960 era. So he outlines the concept of a rule of life, a structured set of habits and practices modeled

00:13:32.640 after the lifestyle of Jesus and his early followers. So this is kind of, again, going off

00:13:38.080 of the idea that we should be setting rhythms for our life that are centered around Christ and what he

00:13:44.800 has called us to, not the busy demands of everything else going on, which, of course, I agree with.

00:13:51.280 Again, a little bit about him. 20 years, he pastor Bridgetown Church in Portland.

00:13:56.960 Then he stepped down a few years ago, and he has been extremely influential when it comes to

00:14:06.420 a lot of evangelical teaching. He's sold a lot of books, and a lot of people really like

00:14:12.000 John Mark Comer. Now, a lot of people also have problems with John Mark Comer. So let's get into

00:14:18.140 that just a little bit, just to kind of set us up for why we're even talking about this right now,

00:14:22.960 because this was all over Christian X over the weekend. Pastor and author Gary Gilley writes

00:14:29.340 about Comer's rise in popularity with young Christians, especially in Gen Z. He says he has

00:14:35.100 tapped into the unrest, the emptiness, the confusion, and exhaustion that we all feel at times and which

00:14:40.540 is escalating in our world, and he is offering seemingly fresh answers in appealing ways.

00:14:46.480 Gilley points out that Comer's ideas mirrored the spiritual formation movement that was started

00:14:50.780 by Richard Foster and Dallas Willard in the 1970s and 80s. It encouraged Protestants to adopt

00:14:56.620 ancient Catholic and Orthodox mystical practices that were used by monks or early church figures,

00:15:02.000 like contemplative prayer and solitude, aiming for a direct personal experience with God.

00:15:09.280 He goes on to critique this. He says,

00:15:11.320 There are the time-tested practical Christian disciplines that we're all familiar with,

00:15:15.720 things like corporate and personal Bible study, worship, prayer, discipleship, and service.

00:15:20.140 On the other hand, many of the leading voices, including this one, and the spiritual formation

00:15:24.800 movement stress the need for more intuitive interpretations of spirituality, more experiential.

00:15:31.480 They encourage believers to incorporate a wide variety of extra-biblical spiritual practices,

00:15:35.800 such as contemplative prayer, silence, meditation, not just meditating on God's word, but the emptying

00:15:42.240 of the mind, creative expression, and yoga. So I would say that a lot of this is kind of a

00:15:48.760 synthesis of Eastern mysticism and Christianity. Gilley notes similarities between Comer and emergent

00:15:58.140 church leaders like Rob Bell. Now, Rob Bell is just an out-and-out heretic at this point, 0.66

00:16:03.500 but he said that there's crossover, highlighting that Comer's opening quote in Practicing the Way,

00:16:08.280 may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi, appears in Rob Bell's short film Dust and his book 0.73

00:16:13.720 Velvet Elvis, and he suggests that Comer repackages Rob Bell's ideas for a new generation. Now, I am sure

00:16:20.760 that John Mark Comer would probably have his own disputes with that description, but just trying

00:16:27.500 to describe what a lot of people have issues with. In a 2011 article, Evangelical Theologians

00:16:33.480 Al Mohler, whom we've had on the show several times, he wrote about Rob Bell's controversy and the

00:16:40.040 emerging church movement controversy by saying that that's a new form of cultural Christianity,

00:16:46.320 and that he's playing fast and loose with the gospel. Rob Bell is not John Mark Comer at this point,

00:16:54.200 and that he is purveying false teachings, and criticized Rob Bell for towing the line of universalism,

00:17:01.360 which is absolutely what Rob Bell did. So, some worry that John Mark Comer is going in the same

00:17:07.620 direction. Reformed Baptist theologian Tim Challies critiques JMC's Practicing the Way for

00:17:14.320 promoting mysticism through spiritual practices that involve, quote, an expectation of receiving original

00:17:20.500 and unmediated revelation from God, which we know that the revelation, the special revelation that

00:17:28.680 God has given us is through his word. Of course, the Holy Spirit can still prompt us, can still convict us,

00:17:36.980 can still compel us to say and to move in the direction that God wants us to go, but we are not

00:17:44.620 going to uncover new, previously undiscovered truths that are not in Scripture. Challies argues that Comer

00:17:53.920 redefines the gospel that he moves away from the traditional evangelical understanding of penal

00:17:59.380 substitutionary atonement. So, even in this book, some people have been talking about John Mark Comer's

00:18:05.040 evolution for a while, and would probably argue that his announcement that he doesn't love PSA or

00:18:12.300 seems to not agree with PSA is not that much of a surprise. Challies states that in his book that

00:18:18.920 John Mark Comer especially abominates the gospel of street preachers and its message of repent of

00:18:23.520 your sin so you won't go to hell. He suggests, Challies suggests, that Comer's gospel is instead

00:18:28.820 live like Jesus and live for Jesus so other people can become interested in Jesus. Comer argues the

00:18:35.680 gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to

00:18:40.740 all through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and the gift of the

00:18:44.800 spirit. Jesus has saved, is saved, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus,

00:18:50.480 we can enter his kingdom and into the inner life of God himself. Now, what I think is interesting about

00:18:56.300 that description, that particular description of the gospel, is that there is no mention of what

00:19:00.740 Jesus is actually saving us from. And what is the means by which all of these things are saving us?

00:19:07.800 Of course, we would argue by grace through faith. We are being saved from our sin and from hell.

00:19:12.360 Now, I'm not saying that John Mark Comer has never said that, but I do think it's fair to look at a

00:19:16.980 sentence that starts with the gospel is and expect there to be a full picture of what the gospel

00:19:23.280 actually is. Challies points out that Comer's preference for terms like apprentice over disciple

00:19:28.100 and the way over Christianity kind of distances the book from traditional Christian terminology.

00:19:35.280 And then I would agree with that. Baptist pastor Dan Schreiner says that Comer's work may be

00:19:39.820 appealing for the same reason that self-help books are. Works righteousness is the default

00:19:44.900 setting of the human heart, he argues. Comer emphasizes Jesus as a healer and a teacher rather

00:19:52.540 than a substitute. This is a theme that many argue we see throughout his books, who takes the punishment

00:19:59.580 rather than a substitute, who takes the punishment for sin and focuses on confession and surrender

00:20:04.660 without mentioning very often repentance. This is a video of John Mark Comer from 2021.

00:20:13.800 And he says that the gospels are the gospel and that the evangelical idea of the gospel is actually

00:20:19.460 not preached in the gospels that we have. Here's that too.

00:20:22.740 My understanding of the gospel is anytime I preach Jesus, anytime I announce anything about Jesus,

00:20:28.620 his birth, his death, his incarnation, his teachings, his miracles, his parables, his resurrection,

00:20:33.680 his ascension to the right hand of the Father, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the great tradition

00:20:37.900 of discipleship, thousands of years old, in his name, I am preaching the gospel of Jesus.

00:20:43.680 And if you search for some of the most popular summaries of the gospel in the American church,

00:20:48.620 such as what Dr. Gary Beshears calls the John 3.16 gospel, which is basically you're a sinner

00:20:54.000 going to hell, but Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you can go to heaven when you die.

00:20:58.320 If you search for that in the gospel in front of you, the gospel in front of you, you are hard-pressed

00:21:05.500 to find anything remotely close to that in any of the four gospels of Jesus.

00:21:14.360 The book of John is, John 3.16 is one of the gospels of Jesus. And so we actually see it right there.

00:21:22.620 That's why so often Christians encourage non-Christians or new Christians to start with the book of John 0.96

00:21:28.280 because we actually do see the gospel articulated so clearly. And you know, it's just interesting

00:21:34.960 because right there you see the same line of thinking that red-letter Christians, so-called Christians,

00:21:41.480 have, which is that we can separate the gospels and separate Jesus's word from the epistles,

00:21:47.900 and that the epistles somehow carry less authority than the gospels themselves. But

00:21:53.880 that would mean that if you believe that, then you don't believe that the entire Bible is the

00:22:00.520 inerrant, infallible word of God. Because if you believe that, then the epistles, which expound

00:22:06.800 upon that gospel message that we read in one of the gospels, John 3.16, are just as authoritative,

00:22:13.140 or just as much God's words as anything that Jesus, who is God, also said in the gospel

00:22:20.180 accounts. And so you kind of see hints of what I would call deconstruction in the things he writes

00:22:27.280 and says. Now, I'm sure defenders of him would say, well, that's not fair. I would say he very much

00:22:34.740 wants to push back against what he sees as the Americanization of Christianity and what he sees

00:22:43.560 as Western civilization's perversion of the gospel by trying to introduce subversive ideas within

00:22:52.840 Christianity that he actually calls ancient ideas and the original ideas of Jesus that I would argue

00:22:58.820 are just kind of the basic tenets of theological liberalism. All right, we'll get into more of

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00:24:07.600 goodranchers.com slash Allie, code Allie. All right. So a lot of people weren't actually surprised when

00:24:18.220 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

00:24:31.020 substitutionary atonement is actually not supported by the New Testament. And that basically means

00:24:37.880 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

00:24:49.560 and unification. And so this book denies that Jesus took our place on the cross and carried our

00:25:00.420 punishment and paid the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross. This book denies that. He suggests

00:25:08.420 that Jesus's death is better understood through a participatory framework, not a substitutionary

00:25:14.060 framework. He argues. So this is kind of the basic line. And actually, one of you said that you went to

00:25:20.680 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,

00:25:33.560 ahead of us, not instead of us. So that Jesus died, he argues, ahead of us to invite people into

00:25:40.740 union with him, union in suffering, union in sacrifice, rather than dying instead of us to

00:25:48.420 absorb and take on our punishment. And this particular author looks at the entire Levitical

00:25:55.300 system that we see in the Old Testament and says that Jesus's death is a continuation of the Levitical

00:26:02.800 system. And in the Levitical system, we don't actually see this idea of substitutionary atonement.

00:26:10.520 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.

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00:33:47.640 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 0.97

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 0.88

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 0.97

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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00:44:30.420 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 1.00

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

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00:50:11.280 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 0.71

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

00:50:52.520 of Scripture, including this show. He said,

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 0.95

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 0.64

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 0.61

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

00:53:05.440 important thing is that we are understanding the gospel, understanding Isaiah 53, the biblical prophecies,

00:53:13.000 and all of the signs and the signposts that led to the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ

00:53:18.700 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.

00:53:43.000 We'll be back here on Friday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 20, 2025

Ep 1232 ｜ John Mark Comer & the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Debate

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