#STRask - Does God Really Need a “Pound of Flesh” to Forgive Sins?

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Questions about how to answer the challenge that God doesn’t need a “pound of flesh” to forgive sins but can simply forgive, and whether the claim in Romans 10:13 that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved contradicts Matthew 7:21.   How do you answer the challenge that God doesn’t need a “pound of flesh” to forgive sins but can simply forgive? Romans 10:13 says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but Matthew 7:21 says not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will be saved. Can you help me understand this contradiction?

Good morning, Greg. Good morning. All right. We're just going to get started because I am terrible at small talk. Yeah. We don't need it. We got so many good things to talk about. Yes, we do.

Okay, so this first question comes from Anthony. How do you answer the challenge that God does not need a, quote, pound of flesh to forgive sins? He can just forgive. the progressive argument against penal substitutionary atonement. These same people argue that the church originally did not teach this and that Anselm invented it. Okay, Anselm is a thousand years after the beginning of the church. I don't make my case for substitutionary atonement from any church fathers. Church fathers were good about a lot of things, they were not so good about other things.

They were principally, especially the anti-Nicine fathers, those before the Council of Nicaea, were focusing on other problems. Who is Jesus? Was a true God, true man? And there were 300 years they spent talking about that, trying to get that nailed down. It wasn't the main subject of discussion. How do I or anyone else who holds this view develop it? We develop it from the text.

Okay, Peter, in two places. read it the other day, 1 Peter, cites Isaiah 53 as applying to Jesus. And there are other references actually in Bill Craig's book on the Atonement. He cites a massive number of references in the New Testament to Isaiah 53 being a prediction of Jesus. When you read Isaiah 53, you cannot on any fair reading. You cannot deny the, I'm trying to think of the best words here. You can't deny the development of the idea there of a substitutionary atonement. It is in all the words, almost in the entire book. I'm kind of trying to turn to it right now. Where is I said? Before is It's hard to miss, Greg.

It's a long one. You just go right. There were a bunch of long ones. Right the middle. Open up the middle. There you go. Isaiah, oh, I came to 51. Okay, Isaiah 53.

Okay. Surely our griefs, he himself bore starting verse 4. And our sours he carried. Oh, that could be metaphoric. Smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through four hour transgressions. and that's one that is quoted the New Testament. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scouraging, another one, in the New Testament,

we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, and each of us has served his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. He was despised and forsaken of men. I'm jumping earlier now in verse three. Because a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, okay, and like one from whom men hide their face, okay, he was despised. Oh, and we did not esteem him. I didn't want to read that first. I thought it was going to say something else. Okay, here it is verse eight.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. Oh, okay, that's a man. My subtext here is just saying, oh, this is the way people might explain it away, until you get to the next line. and for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgressions of my people to whom the stroke was due? Okay, I mean, it's like, keep reading. I'm not going to, but keep reading. It is so clear.

And there's also a verse in 1st Peter that he bore his sins in his body. He bore our sins in his body on the cross. he bore our sins in his body on the cross. First Peter, what, three or maybe four, somewhere in there. But there it is. What, what, I don't know what more you can ask. And by his wounds, we were healed. Yeah, and that was also in Isaiah 53, it's Peter cites.

So, so we are not talking about church fathers. I mean, my point is, if the church fathers did not believe that Jesus died for our sins, that is, he was the substitute whose payment paid for our sin, then the church fathers were wrong. How can you say it about the church? Who are you? It's not me. It's Isaiah. It's Peter.

And other passages, those are the first ones that come to mind. But I wrote a piece in response to this challenge, Solid Ground. It's in our website, SCR.org, titled Why the Blood? and I'm specifically dealing with this particular challenge. And now, now there's actually two steps to answering this question. The question is actually a second step. Why is it necessary? What if I can't answer that question?

I don't know why it's necessary. That doesn't mean it's not true. The first question is, is it true? And the only way you find that is principally, not by going to other Christians who followed the writers of Scripture and gave their opinions, because you get varied opinions on a number of things. And I'm not dissing the church fathers. They're very important.

But you have to ask the question, what does the text say? That is the first question who always have to determine. And you work at that. What I did here was try to read Isaiah 53, which is quoted multiple times or referred to multiple times in the New Testament, because I take this as unequivocal language. So what you can't say is, well, then why? And then act as if the inability to answer the why question somehow cancels out the text. You always have to start with the text on these controversial issues.

And if there are, if there's, what, dangling or loose threads or outliers or, or things you don't understand and you can't figure it out and you're scratching your head. All right, there's a lot of things in the Bible like that. Anybody look through my Bible, especially Jesus and the Gospels? You can see question marks all over the margin. What the heck? What's this all about? I don't get this.

There's lots of things we don't understand. But that can't, if we don't understand the why, the answer to the why question regarding something, that doesn't invalidate the textual statements. That's where I start. Okay, so why couldn't God just do that? Well, let me speculate, because that's what it amounts to at this point. Although in this particular case, you would probably get more detail. It's because it wouldn't be just.

It wouldn't fulfill his requirements of justice. And that's why Paul says, and so now we add another text in Romans, so he could be just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. and that's your favorite book, so you probably know exactly where this out. It's exactly where I was going to go, because in that passage, it says, let's see, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood. By the way, the word propitiation means satisfaction. Yes. It's a satisfaction.

Of what? A satisfaction of, go ahead. In his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, and here's where you brought this verse in, Greg, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who is faith in Jesus. Two things, not just one. Justifier, you could say, well, that's just forgiveness, but justice wouldn't have been done. And so when it says there, the, uses the word propitiation, he is using the word fulfillment or satisfaction of what?

Read down further, justice. So that whole idea of God's righteousness, propitiation, and justice are all brought together there with the cross. And that's what it comes down to. A judge who is not just is not good. Right. If God is good, then he cares about justice. I don't know that anyone who objects to Jesus having to be to pay for our sins would like it if judges would just let off, let's say a white person goes in who's a racist and he murders 50 black people. And the judge says, you know what, I'm loving.

and I'm going to let you go because I'm loving. Who would think that was loving? Who would think that was loving? That is unjust. That judge is a bad judge. So let me take it a step through. You absolutely right. It's great illustration because people say, well, that's unloving to the victims.

Okay. But when we sin, who is analogous to the victims in this illustration? When we sin. God. Psalm 51, against you and you only have I sinned. So it would not be just towards the one who is offended. And that's God himself, exactly right. A lot of times I don't like throwing out a rhetorical question waiting for somebody to respond

because a lot of times they get it wrong. But you never get it wrong, Amy. You always get it right. I don't know about that. But you're right. That's right. God was the one who's offended so that the justice is do him. It's not do anyone else.

So I think also God has been setting this up for a thousand. years with them with the sacrificial system. All this time, they've been bringing the animals to... Actually, 1,500 years. 1500 years, yeah. So this isn't out of the blue. It's connected to the cross. It's connected to justice.

And a good judge judges, a good judge would never sweep everything under the rug. Now, I would also say sometimes I think the reason why people are, people get confused about this is that they don't understand how God adopts his people. There's an emphasis on God being our father by adoption. So God adopts those who have faith in him. Not everyone. And this is where the confusion happens. God is our father. Just read through Romans 8, where it talks about how now we have this, if we have the spirit of Christ, we have the spirit of adoption. We have been adopted, and the spirit testifies that we are his children. Aba father. Those are his people. Those who are not adopted

are not his children. They stand in relationship to him primarily as a judge, not a father. So it's not, people get this confused, and they're trying to interpret his relationship with those who are unrepentant as being a father. But he's not their father. in that way. Correct. So when you put all these things together, it starts to make more sense. Now, here's the final... By the way, John, chapter one, as many has received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. So I just want to reinforce that point. And then finally, I would say people who object to this, they end up removing the good news.

Because what happens is they say, this isn't for the sake of propitiation. So what is it the sake of? many times they'll say, well, God was showing how we shouldn't use power to A, B, or C, or it's against the powers of the the empires, or it's to show us how we should live, or all these things. Or as an example of how bad sin is, but not anything more than that. But most of the time what they'll say is, so therefore now we are to imitate him. So what they've done is turn the gospel into legal, legalism. So instead of being good news, Christ has saved you, it becomes law. It becomes a law you have to follow.

It completely turns the gospel on its head. And it's bad news. So it's so in every way, once you walk away from penal substitutionary atonement, you have so many problems. You have problems with the text. You have problems with God's justice. And you have problems with this being good news rather than just a new law for us to follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I don't like it when people...

When you miss the very point of everything. The piece I wrote is called Why the Blood. And I think it came out in 23 or 24. So, why the blood? And I go into all the details because I'm reacting to people who objected to some things that I wrote. wrote in the story of reality. I wasn't mad about it. I was a little surprised to see it, but nevertheless, I wanted to respond to it because it's a common response to substitutionary atonement. It's the foundation. It's the very foundation of the good news. By the way, in that

article, I footnote a number of things. I have bib sources there. So if you want to go in more detail, that's only about 35, maybe 4,000 words in that case. But Bill Craig has written a tremendous book on this. Actually, I think a couple of them, one is shorter than the other, but I do footnote that and other theological tomes as well. But that might be a good place to start to get a clear idea. Let's go into a question from Connor. Romans 1013 says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved. Then Matthew 721 says not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will be saved. Help me understand this contradiction. Sure. Well, okay, now you've just said, help me understand the contradiction. If it's a contradiction, it's a contradiction. Help me

understand these verses, because they sound like a contradiction, be a better way to put it. We don't want to just assume it. And this goes back to something, I think we said at an earlier show, about being charitable about apparent problems. And this is the case. Why should we immediately presume that Paul doesn't understand what Jesus said, and he's contradicting what Jesus said. And the way we usually solve this problem is by applying a simple rule. Never read a Bible verse? Never read a Bible verse. So here we are, okay, let me start in the Romans passage here.

And this is Romans chapter 10. and I'm starting in verse 9 to get this flow of thought here. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, so it's a confessing that Jesus is Lord, a confession that Jesus is Lord. Now, who is Lord? Well, God is Lord. And so this term Jesus as Lord is a reference to his divine nature.

This would become more clear at a moment. you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, so it's confessing who he is and what he's done, what God has done here, you will be saved. For at the heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness with the mouth, he confesses resulting in salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, this is part of the theme he's developed here a bit, for the same Lord, is Lord all abounding in riches for all who call on him, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now, that's a citation from the Old Testament. So that Lord in the Old Testament,

in the context, is Yahweh. And so that's being attached here. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, that is, verse 9, 13, you're calling on the name of the Lord who is Lord God. Okay, so there's, this is a statement about, it's basically salvation, okay, and there's more detail that follows there, but that's the basic context of that language. He's talking about belief in Jesus, the Lord, that he is the Lord, God, and that he rose from the dead, all right? Now, going back to Matthew, Jesus is dealing with an entirely different set of circumstances, all right. Starts in verse 15. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing,

but inwardly are ravenous wolves. So I'm always talking about a group of people who kind of look like believers, sheep's clothing, but they're not. They're wolves. And by the way, this is right after he makes a statement about enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide that leads to destruction and narrow that leads to life. And then he says, you'll know them by their fruits. And he develops that metaphor a little bit. And then he says, not everyone, now is our operative verse, verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Notice the different language here. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him to the dead, you'll be saved. That's Paul. Here he says, not everyone who says to me. Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Remember in James, James is talking about faith, and he says, if somebody says I have faith and I have no works, can that faith save him? Notice that he's making a distinction between two types of faith, a saving faith, and a faith that's

just noise, essentially. Jesus is doing the same thing here. He's not using the word faith, he's using the word Lord, but he's making the same kind of distinction. There are those who, who say, Lord, Lord, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom, but he who does the will of my father, who is in heaven, will enter. That is James' point.

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Remember, he just warned five verses above of false prophets. These who he's talking about. In your name, cast out demons, in your name perform miracles, and then I will declare to them,

I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. So when he is talking about the fruit that marks the false believer who says, Lord, Lord, that fruit is practice of lawlessness. To me, all the people who are promoting gay affirming theology in the church, we got a great church, we sing all the same things that you sing. We believe Jesus is Lord. But, where we promote homosexuality. You're promoting something against God's law, and therefore you're promoting lawlessness. That's the warning Jesus is giving here.

So here you kind of have an equivocation on the concept of Lord. Paul and Romans is talking about, you want to get saved, this is it. You bow down before Jesus, call him Lord. He rose from the dead. You'll be saved. Whoever calls a plane in the name of the Lord will be saved. But by the way, the word Lord means something.

Jesus said, why do you call me, Lord, Lord? And you don't do what I say. If you're not doing what Jesus says, if you're not following Jesus in his precepts and his moral constructs and those that maybe he didn't always talk about, but he held to be so because he was a Torah observer Jew, then you are not acknowledging his lordship in your life. And if you're saying, Lord, Lord, it's empty, it's noise. What matters is the fruits. and if the fruit of your Lord Lord and casting out demons and working miracles, the overall fruit is you are promoting lawlessness or living in lawlessness, depart from me, I never knew you. That's Jesus.

That's Jesus' statement. So there's a big difference in the kinds of things that are being discussed here, and that's why it's not a contradiction. And just to emphasize this, I'm glad we talked about the gospel right before this. Just to emphasize the fact that it's not that any works are saving you, it's that they are illustrating the fact that you really love him. I mean, there are other verses, if you love me, you'll keep my commands. So it's demonstrating your desire to follow him and your love for him.

And of course, no one is perfect. So I don't want anyone to walk away with that either. But when we follow Christ, when we're joined to him, our whole relationship to him changes. And from that point on, we hate our sin. We repent of our sin. We follow him. We admit it when we're wrong. We ask for forgiveness. And we trust in his grace and the provision that he made for us on the cross. And there it is again. The gospel is our hope. And those who love him because of that are those who follow him. If you're not following him, that's an indication that you have just used his name, but weren't really following.

Yeah, very parallel concepts between this passage in Matthew 7 and James Chapter 2. Well, thank you, Greg. And thank you, Anthony and Connor. We appreciate hearing from you. And please send us your question. You can go to X and just use the hashtag STRASK. Or if you go to our website, just look for our hashtag STRASK podcast page. And then you'll find a link there to send us your question.

We really look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.