The Sean McDowell Show - 10 Questions on the Atonement

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Is substitutionary atonement essential to the gospel? How is it fair for Jesus to die for the sins of others? In this interview, I talk with pastor and author Jeremy Treat about his new book The Atonement: An Introduction. READ: The Atonement: An Introduction (https://a.co/d/iyJR077) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter:   / sean_mcdowell   TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram:   / seanmcdowell   Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

How can one man's bloody death on a cross 2,000 years ago be considered good news? Well, our guest today, pastor and Biola University theology professor, Dr. Jeremy Treat, is the author of a new book I thoroughly enjoyed called The Atonement, an introduction we're going to get into. That's why it's good news. That's why it's so powerful. Something happened on the cross 2,000 years ago that changed human history. And what that is... First, Jeremy, just for you, because you're a

fellow Biola basketball player, I wore this shirt. I love it. I love it. The reality is, I'm just looking for an excuse to wear Biola hoop stuff, but it's good to have you on. Well, it's good to see you, Sean. I mean, I'm grateful for you and for the show. Honored to be a part of it. And I was thinking coming into this, I should be referring to you as Coach McDowell. Oh, man. Because not only did I play at Biola, but you were one of my coaches.

Well, I'm starting to coach my son's fifth grade team coming up. I'm pretty excited about. But this is great. I've wanted to have you on for a long time, been pretty excited about but uh this is great I've wanted to have you on for a long time been following your ministry saw this book I was like perfect opportunity now you have a provocative statement towards the beginning of your book that jumped out to me and it says quote the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the most significant event in the history of the world. Explain and justify

what you mean by that, Jeremy. Yeah, I mean I really believe that. I think it's because something happened on the cross 2,000 years ago that changed human history. It wasn't just like an example that we look at and we can follow or something like minimal that happened that became big over time. When Jesus died, something happened that changed everything. And what that is, is he accomplished all that's necessary for rescuing sinners and renewing creation. And so, I mean, when I think about, when I talk to people about the cross, like even as a pastor, as a preacher, I can tell people your greatest problem has already been solved. I mean, like everyone's walking around in life feeling,

I got these problems, I'm doing this, I got this, I got that. Okay. But like your biggest problem in life was dealt with 2000 years ago on the cross. That's why it's good news. That's why it's so powerful. Literally all of human history has been changed, and eternity will be shaped by the fact that our King laid down his life for us on the cross. Now you use a word that jumped out to me. It's the word beautiful in reference to the cross. Now you also have a section in the book, which as an apologist I appreciate, where you walk through how the nature of the cross was to publicly shame and torture somebody. How is there beauty

in an act of public shaming and torture? Yeah. I mean, that point, Sean, is so important because I think we've domesticated the cross today. We see it tattooed on somebody's shoulder or dangling from somebody's necklace. And people in America, in our context, they see a cross and they mainly think positive things. They think of love and help. You know, yeah, just they have good associations with it. But the cross was a form of capital punishment. It was in crucifixion was invented not only to physically torture people, but to publicly shame them. And so, yeah, how does somebody being crucified naked or nearly naked, stretched out, mocked on an open road, how is that beautiful?

Well, this is the question that Paul addresses directly in 1 Corinthians 1. He says the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. You look at somebody hanging on a cross and you say, that's foolishness, that's weakness, that's defeat. But Paul says through the lens of faith, the cross is the wisdom and power of God. And that's amazing. So when he says the wisdom and power of God, he's saying, well, it looks like foolishness, but it's actually wisdom. Why? Because it's God's way of saving sinners. It's God's way of renewing creation through self-giving love. And it's power. How could you look at the

cross and say that's power? Well, it's power being made perfect through weakness. It's power in the sense that it's God's love controlled by his mercy and grace to save sinners. So that's where, on one level, the cross was the most horrific event this world has ever seen. It was unjust. It was gruesome. It was a bloody murder. And yet, it's the most beautiful thing because it's the way that God has entered into creation and taken the most horrific, ugly situation and created something beautiful and redeeming out of it. One of the common objections to the atonement that I hear, interestingly enough, from segments of the broader Christian community and also from skeptics, agnostics, atheists, and those who are outside, is that the cross is divine child abuse. Given that you've studied the cross and you hear that kind of objection, what comes to your mind in response?

Well, on the one hand, I understand how people make that accusation because I think a lot of preachers have preached in such a way that pit the Father against the Son. And so some of those critiques are valid in terms of the way that people have preached the cross in an insufficiently Trinitarian way. What I would say to that critique, though, is that it's divine child abuse, is that it doesn't understand the cross from a biblical perspective, and it certainly isn't taking into account the doctrine of the Trinity. And so when we talk about the cross, we have to recognize that the atonement is the apex of the triune mission of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at work together to reconcile sinners. And so if you don't have that understanding of who God is as one God in three persons,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then everything starts to go off. And it's easy just to pit the Father against the Son. But when you see this in Scripture of the cross as a triune act, then it's ridiculous to be able to talk about the father abusing the son as if the son didn't know what was going on, as if the son is kind of like blindsided in all of this. I mean, I'll give you an example, Sean, of one of the illustrations that leads to this is the classic illustration of the train tracks. So, I mean, I heard this as a kid, I'm sure you did as well. But the idea is that, you know, the train conductor is doing his job, trains coming, he's got to shift the tracks, but he looks down and he sees his son playing in the tracks. And he has this dilemma that if he doesn't shift the tracks, then this train is going to go off and everyone's going to die.

If he does shift the tracks, his son will die, but he will save everyone else. And so what does he do? He shifts the tracks, his son dies and saves everyone in the train. Now, that illustration has a hint of truth in it. There's an element of sacrifice, but it smuggles in all these other ideas that are really destructive overall. So the idea there is like Jesus was blindsided. Like he didn't voluntarily die on behalf of anyone else. Like he was blindsided. And then the father's not necessarily doing it out of love. He's doing it out of like a utilitarian principle of, well, I guess I'll save all these people instead of the one. And so illustrations like that set us up to have wrong views of the atonement where you could see it as divine child abuse. But when you can look at that

and say, okay, no, the father sent the son, but the son voluntarily gives up his life. He's in line with the father in that completely throughout and so i think when you understand the doctrine of the trinity and how that's functioning in the doctrine of atonement it's going to keep you um away from errant understandings like that you know those kind of illustrations i remember hearing that at camp so many times i didn't really press it as much theologically as i should but the idea is like this accidental thing takes the father by surprise, right? The son doesn't know what he's doing. If you start to unpack it, it really goes off the rails, so to speak, and is not helpful, which makes me wonder, so many people teaching these illustrations, how much do they really understand the atonement

in the first place? So that's why I think your book is really, really helpful. It's bringing us back primarily to what scripture teaches. Now we're going to define atonement. We're going to get into what the doctor means, consider some objections to it. But there's an idea in your book that I love where you talk about this secular longing for atonement and what i like about this is oftentimes i'll look at people's lives and i hopefully this is not in a judgmental fashion but i know that we live in god's world and because of sin we're separated from god so we all have this need for justification and if we don't find justification through christ we're going to find it through our accomplishments find it through going to find it through our accomplishments, find it through human relationships, find it through our career.

So really the question is not, are we seeking some kind of atonement? It's really, what kind of atonement are we seeking? Now, is that what you're getting at when you say a secular longing for atonement? Yeah, I mean, everyone knows that something is wrong with the world and everyone has kind of this has an answer to what's wrong with the world and what's the remedy and so how do we deal how do we deal with the guilt and the shame that we experience in our lives for things that we've done wrong how do we look at the injustices in society and respond to that and and so yeah we try and atone. You even hear this language in day-to-day conversation. I did this thing wrong. How can I atone for it? What do I need

to make it right? And you even see it societally. I mean, I remember seeing headlines during the pandemic when everyone, after George Floyd's death, where everyone was talking about different, how do we atone for the wrongs of our past? What do we do to make it right? So people are longing for atonement. They're longing to deal with their sin, with their guilt, with their shame. They're longing for things to be made right. They're longing for justice and love.

That's one of the things that I think it's powerful in terms of apologetics, is that people long for justice today more than ever. Isn't it interesting, Sean, how I feel like when I was a kid, like Christians were ashamed to talk about the justice of God. It was like, well, yeah, you know, like, I know, let me explain it. He's really loving, but he has to be just, you know, to uphold his character. And now like the justice is like, we want to just God. But so often in our society, like the desire for justice is driven by hatred. It's more like revenge than righteousness. And so I think when we talk about the cross with non-Christians, to say there's a way that justice can be upheld

and that love can bring transformation, and all of that comes together at the cross where you see the holiness and the mercy of God. I think in a sense with non-Christians, we can say to them, you might not believe that that's true, but don't you want to believe that? Don't you want not believe that that's true but don't you want to believe that don't you want to believe that justice and love come together in a perfect way don't you want to believe that everything actually can be made right without just either saying okay that's not that big of a deal or just having the oppressed um taken down and and and or the oppressed replaced the oppressors. So I think the cross, even if people don't believe it, I think they would want to believe it. It is such a beautiful story.

You know, I'm curious about the background in you writing this book. For me, I haven't written a book on the atonement. I've read enough to probably think I know what I'm talking about, but clearly not as much research as you've done for this. But I think about my life. I grew up in a Christian home, and I believed that Christianity was true. But it was really in college that I remember just feeling the weight of my own sin. I thought everybody had to have a prodigal son experience, and then it really hit me. I was like, oh my goodness, I'm like the older brother. I also need to come to the Father, but I'm self-righteous. I think I'm better than everybody else. And the weight of that is pretty crushing. And so sometimes just singing worship songs, sometimes just reading about the atonement

and what Jesus did can literally bring tears to my eyes and motivate me in a way because of the awareness of my sin. Now, I'm not asking you to have any more dramatic story than is behind this book, but is there a personal book or is there a personal story or personal motivation why you chose to write this book? Yeah. I mean, well, at one level, I want to understand the depths of the gospel and I'm with you. Like, I'm still just amazed that God saved me and want to understand the depths of that. I think that's what theology is, is just understanding the depths of the gospel at the end of the day. But you know, one of the things with this, Sean, was like there's a lot of good books on the atonement. And so when I was

thinking about whether to write this or not, one of the things that got me was what I see happening is people are getting really excited about cultural and controversial issues, and they yawn over the doctrine of atonement. And what I'm seeing is young people especially are having their theology shaped by reactionary debates on Twitter about a lot of topics that are fleeting, and then they're not getting a foundation in terms of theology. So they're chasing after the latest conversation about critical race theory,

or the latest headline about politics, but they don't know anything about the doctrine of the Trinity, or the atonement, or the doctrine of scripture. And so part of what I wanted to do with this is help people understand something that's so foundational, not in a way that's dismissive towards all of that other stuff, like politics, sexuality, race, that's all really important, but in a way that when you understand what Christ accomplished on the cross, it actually then gives you resources and helps you in all those other conversations. So that's why in the book, I mean, I not only unpack the meaning of the cross, but I show how what's intrinsic to that is how it then sets us up to talk about politics

and race, all kinds of things like discipleship, community, our identity. So I just felt a burden that I want young people to be grounded in biblical truths that are foundational to everything that we believe. And so that's a lot of why I wrote this. And then, like I said, there's a lot of other good books on the atonement, but I mean, a few things that are unique about mine is that I shape it with the story of the kingdom. And being able to say, to understand what Christ accomplished on the cross, we have to put that in the broader context of the story of the kingdom of God. And then I try and give us a multi-dimensional view of the cross. So rather than just kind of picking or choosing theories here or there, saying we need to embrace the fullness of what Christ accomplished in an integrated way. And then I try and get practical with it in terms of discipleship,

community, social issues. And one other thing with what I tried to do that I think is unique is I've tried to be really intentional about learning from and incorporating the voices of majority world scholars. I think that the cross is a global accomplishment and we'll best understand it from global perspectives. So I tried to be deliberate in my research and in my writing of having a doctrine of atonement that reflects the multicultural kingdom of God. Well, you did, and I picked up on that. Because sometimes diversity can be in our face where we virtue signal, look how diverse I am, and you're just like, you don't even say it. You're just scholars from the past, from a range of backgrounds,

different parts of the world. Let's expand this. And I think it really made it even richer. You write this on page 7, which I highlight. You said, The primary goal of the Doctrine of the Atonement is for the church to understand more of the depths of the gospel in order to worship the triune God and live according to his gospel. In other words, the purpose of theology is to understand and love God and love

other people. When we understand what God has done for us, then we can engage racial reconciliation. Then we can engage questions like immigration and gun control and all the other pressing issues of our day But we need to get our house in order Theologically speaking and I'm convinced a lot of people don't even understand what's meant by the atonement So we probably should have started here Jeremy, but tell us just give us a definition or what do we actually mean by? Atonement. Yeah, so traditionally the atonement is how the cross makes us at one with god so that word atonement you can break down to at one mint and so sin separates us from god and the atonement is about what jesus accomplished what happened during that time 2 000 years ago that changed

human history so i affirm that traditional understanding understanding of how the cross reconciles us to God, but I expand it in two ways in the book. And so one is that I want to say the cross not only reconciles us to God, but it also renews creation. So there's vertical and horizontal implications to the cross. And then the second is that the doctrine of atonement is certainly centered on the death of Christ, but needs to come within a broader spectrum of his incarnation, his ministry, his resurrection, his ascension, and how each one of those is essential for the saving work of Christ. So let's talk a little bit more about what you just referred to as kind of what's this one-dimensional reductionism, where we take the atonement and minimize it to just one facet of what Scripture talks about.

So maybe tell us what you mean by, maybe remind us really quick, what you mean by one-dimensional reductionism and how we should think about the atonement. Yeah, so the way that the conversation usually goes in the doctrine of atonement is what theory do you believe? And when people ask that, there's usually three main options. It's either you believe in Christus Victor, that what Christ accomplished on the cross was victory over Satan and demons, or penal substitution, that he satisfied the wrath of God, or moral exemplar theory, that he gave us an example of self-giving

love. And that's the way that the conversation usually goes, and it's usually a, it's this, it's not that. So that's why I call it one-dimensional reductionism. What this results in is reducing the fullness of a gospel to the fraction of its truth, where people feel like they have to choose between two biblical truths. And so what I try and do in the book is blow that up and say, I don't think this is the best way to approach this at all. In fact, historically, nobody talked about the atonement in terms of theories until the 1850s when theologians were trying to kind of keep up with the university system and use language they used. I didn't know that. Yeah, so nobody did that.

And so I just don't think it having a one-dimensional reductionism, I want to have a multi-dimensional understanding of the cross where we recognize, yes, what did Jesus accomplish on the cross? He defeated Satan and demons. He satisfied the wrath of God. He gave us an example and so much more. That's part of the problem is even reducing it to these three things. It's like, okay, he also adopted us into the family of God. He gives us immortality and eternal life. We experience healing by the wounds of Christ.

He brings us home from exile. He removes our shame. I mean, on and on and on. So I go through 20 different dimensions in the book of what Christ accomplished on the cross. So that's my hope is that we have a fuller, more robust understanding of the atonement so let's uh hone down a little bit on substitution because i don't know anybody who challenges the moral exemplar theory maybe they're out there or the or the crisis victor in some fashion but substitution seems to be the linchpin where the debate is first off is that true since you've researched this more is there more debate on that than the other two? Well, unfortunately, the debate is pendulum swinging. So you get a lot of conservatives who basically say, no, it's not Christus Victor, it's this.

And it's silly, but it's kind of the reactionary debates. And then you do get people who will say moral exemplar is not even a atonement theory because it's not necessarily accomplishing something. So you get some of that. But the most heat is definitely around substitution. It is. Okay. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting about this is Fleming Rutledge's book on crucifixion. She's writing from a mainline perspective, which is really fascinating. And she says, most people reject substitution because they don't take sin seriously. And so sometimes we think it's like different philosophical categories of,

can you transfer guilt here? That kind of thing. I think at the end of the day, I think Rutledge is right that if you don't take sin seriously, for example, then it's easy to either land in Christus Victor or moral exemplar. Because if I'm not really a sinner, if I'm neutral morally, and I just need a good example to follow, then great. That's all we need from the cross is we just need Jesus to give us an example of how to be loving and sacrifice for others, right? Or if I'm just a victim, if I'm just a victim of the evil powers who are oppressing me, then I just need somebody to come and set me free from them. But that's an insufficient doctrine of atonement, because sin also separates us from God and makes us deserving of the judgment of God, and we're slaves to our sin. So I think if you have that understanding of sin,

it's going to set you up for seeing the need of substitution. Seems like we can't fully separate these three as well. For example, the moral exemplar theory. What exactly is it a good moral example of if there wasn't some reason Jesus had to die? I think it's Stott who said, if a building is burning and there's no one in there to save, it makes no sense to run in and just die. You're not a moral example. You're the opposite. So Jesus is a moral example if he's actually dying for sin

and such a sin is required. So I don't think we can unravel these and I know you're not trying to, but it feels like the way you worded it, I want to make sure I quote you correctly. You said, substitution is not another dimension of the atonement, but rather undergirds all the dimensions of the atonement in a way arguably that Christ is victor and more exemplar don't. Do you agree with the way I frame that? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, substitution is not another dimension or metaphor or anything like that.

It's central in a way that integrates all of those. And that's one of the things that's important for me is integration. And so even, you know, we're talking about these big three of Christus Victor and penal substitution moral exemplar. But like 1 John, for example, ties propitiation to Jesus being our example. Like one flows right out of the other. Like, he dies bearing God's wrath in our place, and then it goes on immediately to say, and we should follow him as an example. With Christus Victor and penal substitution, one of the questions I like to ask people who are advocates for Christus Victor is, well, how does Jesus accomplish victory? It's clear that he doesn't accomplish victory just through naked power. He doesn't just overwhelm and overpower the devil. No, he accomplishes victory

through the forgiveness of our sins so that the devil has no accusatory power over us anymore. So the devil, he comes to us and wants to accuse us. It's no, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. I'm justified. I've been declared righteous. So he conquers the devil through the very thing that penal substitution is going after is dealing with judgment and guilt. So it seems pretty obvious that Jesus is the example of love that we should follow. Whether or not that's a, quote, theory or dimension of the atonement seems like an in-house debate that Christians could have. But if substitution is at the root of this, if you lose substitution or atonement, do you lose

the gospel? Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, I think when Paul talks about the gospel, he says, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture. And that for our sins is substitution is embedded in that and so if if you and and this is like you lose the heart but then this is what i'm saying when substitution is central is that if you lose substitution you lose victory if you lose substitution you lose being adopted into the family if you look like that if you pull out the center, everything else dissolves. And so, yeah, it's at the core that Christ died in our place for our sins. That's at the heart of the doctrine of atonement. So let me press back on kind of the apologetic question that I hear, which is more of a philosophical question, which is how can it be moral for Jesus to take our sins? I mean, oftentimes Christians

will say things like in Mark chapter two, Jesus claims to have the authority of God to forgive sins. And I'll say things like, yeah, if you sin against me, I'm the one who can forgive you because I'm the party who has sinned against. Nobody else can do that. Yet when it comes to substitution, it's almost like we're saying, according to many critics, well, now somebody else can pay for your sins instead of you paying for your sins yourself. How is that moral and just? Well, I think the thing that we have to remember with sin is that all sin is against God, ultimately. So if I sin against my wife, then you can't

come in and bear the penalty for that or offer forgiveness in place because I didn't sin against you. But if I sin against my wife, I'm also sinning against God. Right. So God can step in on that. The, when it comes to like, how can you transfer guilt from one person to another, how that works out philosophically is somewhat of a different ordeal. The direction I would go with it is thinking in biblical categories of Jesus as a second Adam. So Adam represented humanity. Jesus comes as a second Adam. And Adam represents fallen humanity now. Jesus comes as a second Adam representing renewed humanity. And so just in the way that a king represents a people, in the way that when David fought Goliath, he's representing Israel, even in that moment, Jesus represents us. And

as we are tied together as a human race in that sense, I think one of the things that why that question is difficult, Sean, is because we think like such individualists because we're so Western, right? Is this is my rights as an individual and then your rights and how can those be transferred one to the other? You know, people in tribes in Africa don't ask those questions when they think much more as a collectivist society that recognizes the inner connections of humanity. That's helpful. Now, I'm not sure if you read this because it's a little bit different lane than yours,

but the best philosophical treatise I'm aware of on the atonement is by William Lane Craig, where he studies the legal literature and just walks through things like guilt transfer and precedent for substitute standing in the place for somebody else and says, this isn't a foreign idea. There is some legal precedent for this. So if people want to explore that, got to interact with William Lane Craig's book. Now, since your book is more on biblical theology, one of the objections I've heard is that

this idea of substitution is kind of a New Testament idea that Paul and Jesus and Peter and the apostles came up with, but isn't really rooted deeply in the Old Testament. Is it found in the Old Testament? Where and how do we see it? Oh, I mean, I don't think it makes sense at all apart from the Old Testament. I mean, you can't understand Hebrews or Romans apart from Leviticus. And the entire sacrificial system, I mean, the word atonement, it's really an Old Testament word, kippur, and it's a Hebrew word. And so the whole idea comes from the Old Testament. And the sacrificial system is saying, how can a holy God dwell with sinful people?

And that's what you have of the tabernacle being set up for that, the sacrificial system of God's a holy God. He wants to dwell with his people as he did in the garden, but our sin separates us from God. And so God gives the sacrificial system as a way of dealing with sin, of atoning for sin to make us at one with God. So I think you see this in the sacrificial system. I think you see it in prophecies looking forward, like in Isaiah 52 and 53 of the suffering servant, Daniel chapter 9, the anointed one being cut off. So you have prophecies in the Old Testament. You have a pattern in the Old Testament of this. And then the sacrificial system, of course, is really the groundwork. I mean, all the words that we even use for atonement, Jesus being the Lamb of God, propitiation,

forgiveness, they're all grounded in the old testament understanding there's a quote that you have in there i don't have it right in front of me but about nt wright talking about when he's explaining the atonement god shares a meal with people what is that quote getting at explain yeah wright says something like when j Jesus wanted to share the meaning of the atonement, he didn't give an explanation, he gave a meal. And part of that, I wouldn't want to create a false dichotomy with that. Fair enough, fair enough. And Jesus did explain things.

He did say, even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He's explaining a lot there. And he's saying, my death is accomplishing what happened with the blood over the door when Israel was redeemed in Egypt. But what I love about Wright's statement there is that the Lord's Supper, when Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper, he's sharing so much meaning about what he was about to accomplish

on the cross in that way. And so he's connecting it to the story of the deliverance from Egypt, but also even the communal aspects of that. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, you don't do it as an individual, right? Like at the church that I'm a part of and that I pastor, we love to talk about the Lord's Supper as a family table. We come together around the table, remembering that it's the blood of Christ shed for our sins, that not only reconciles us to God, but reconciles us to one another. And so that's where this becomes really deep and practical and relational as we understand the beauty of the cross. So this next question I have for you, you could have hinted at it earlier when you made a reference like we think about ourselves individualistically rather than say corporately. Or you write in the book when it comes to the cross, sometimes we focus on the physical pain,

but really, scriptures talk about the shame that Jesus experienced. So my question is, are there certain false narratives or frameworks that we tend to have as Americans, or now since we kind of have a global culture, that makes the atonement in particular hard to understand now that we're 2,000 years removed from it? What are some of those false narratives that make it difficult to really grasp it? So we come up with these bad illustrations like the train conductor, for example. Yeah. Well, let me address the shame thing and then

I'll talk about the false narratives because I'll say it even stronger than you said it. The New Testament doesn't talk at all about the physical pain of the cross. Wow. I mean, it mentions what Jesus went through. But when it talks about the scourging, it doesn't describe how Jesus felt physically or how painful it was. And when it talks about the crucifixion, it doesn't do that. It's almost completely about the public humiliation. It's about social shame.

And so that's so powerful. And it's so different, right? How many sermons have you heard where the pastor goes on and on about the physical pain of the cross? And it kind of, you know, it tugs at the heart, and I was for you. That's all true. I'm not denying any of that. But that's not the emphasis of the gospel writers in the New Testament. And remember that they're in an honor and shame culture. And so Paul doesn't even need to say Christ is bearing shame on the cross. It's like dripping off the pages. They see it. And so when you get to, you

know, Hebrews and it says he bears our shame so that we can receive his honor. I mean, that's like this amazing statement for them. So yeah, I think we've got to understand that our temptation to read our cultural assumptions into the text. And we recognize that in other areas, but we haven't done it very well with the cross. And even talking about shame is a great example of that. You can look at lots of books on the doctrine of atonement that never even mention shame, and they talk about guilt the entire time. And yet, the New Testament talks much more about shame than it does guilt in relation to the cross. So that's one thing of making sure that we don't read our cultural assumptions in. In terms of false narratives that we're tempted to understand the cross within, two come to mind,

because anything that we make sense of things in life by putting it within a story, right? Any kind of statement or event, we make sense of it by understanding how it's a part of a broader story. So a lot of people approach the cross, a lot of Christians approach the cross with this story. It's the story of going to heaven when we die. That I'm a sinner and then God wants me to go and spend eternity in a disembodied existence with him. And when that's kind of the story of the Bible, he's like plucking our souls from the world and taking them to heaven. Then the cross just becomes a ticket to heaven where I raise my hand at an event and I have an assurance that I'm going to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus,

but it doesn't really mean anything for my life. And I just kind of wait till I die to then I get all the good stuff in heaven. So that story reduces the cross to being a ticket to heaven. But another story that I see a lot in the church today is the story of making the world a better place. This was the social gospel of the 1930s. It's a lot of social justice activism in the church today of the real gospel is for us to go out and help the hurting and serve the poor and feed the hungry. And those are great things that scripture commands us to do.

But oftentimes that replaces the gospel where it makes it about what we do rather than what god has done for us and that's the case you reduce the cross when you understand the cross within that story uh jesus just becomes an example at best jesus was loving jesus sacrificed we should go do and do the same he's an example he's not a savior so that's where we need to understand those narratives and say, those aren't the biblical narratives of either going to heaven when you die or us making the world a better place. The narrative of scripture is the story of the kingdom of God, of God reconciling sinners, renewing all of creation,

drawing us into his work that he's doing, but He's doing the work and we get to participate in it. That gives us a rich understanding of the cross that not only speaks to eternity of reigning with Christ on a renewed creation where heaven and earth have come together, but it also draws me into Christ's work today in being citizens of the kingdom of god who are representing him on earth one of the things that i read in your book and i know this was intentional but it jumped out to me is that you and i both teach at bayou university a conservative theological school in southern california so we have certain theological commitments but you push back on certain misunderstandings on the left and certain misunderstandings on the right.

So on the left, you push back sometimes and say there's oftentimes a lack of a substantive understanding of the nature and impact and weight of sin. And so substitutionary atonement is downplayed. On the right, it can become just saving my soul at the expense of you start out by saying atonement is at one minute with god is the root of it relationally but also at one with others and also at one with creation which is a more balanced approach so that in your book i think people theologically to the left and theologically to the right would feel like their voices are heard. You push them back to the scriptures and aren't kind of picking fights, so to speak, in this apart from what scripture says.

Well done in that regard. Now, I'm curious as you're reading this because your lane is theology. You did your PhD in, was it in systematic theology? Remind me. Okay. So you're not approaching this through a philosophical lens primarily, but through a biblical lens. Sometimes doctrines like this, I tend to approach philosophically or apologetically, sometimes to a fault, rather than primarily biblically and try to balance that out.

Tell me how you approach this. Which is primary? Is it if the Bible teaches it, I'm believing it, even if it's illogical, the Bible teaches this, I know there's going to be a logical justification of it because the Bible is true. How do you kind of balance those two things in your mind? Yeah, I mean, as a Christian, I believe that Scripture needs to be the authority on everything.

And I think we're all going to agree on that as Christians. But there's different approaches to understanding Scripture that are mutually helpful. So systematic theology is going to approach Scripture in a particular way of saying, how do I take what the Bible says as a whole, and then communicate what that means for us today in terms of what we believe about God or about sin or about the cross. Philosophers are going to get in and try and say, how does the logic of that work with this and that? And all of that's important. I don't think like a philosopher. I usually can't keep up with philosophers or hang with some of the language that they use. And so for some of it, logic today, it's shaped by the world, right? We can't just think

of logic as this kind of thing in a vacuum that isn't shaped by our society today. And so if scripture teaches something and somebody says, well, that's not logical, I'm going to say, well, I'm going to stand with scripture on this and maybe your logic is off. Maybe weakness is strength sometimes. You know, it's not logical when Paul says, when I am weak, then I am strong. But if you understand what he means by that, then it's like, okay, that makes sense. So yeah, I want to, I try to work with biblical categories as much as I can. That's fair. Because I think it's helpful for Christians to be able to understand it tied to scripture,

as opposed to using a bunch of words that aren't. Now, of course, I'm glad to use those words. The word Trinity is not in the Bible. The word substitution isn't really a biblical word, but it represents biblical idea. So yeah, I'm grateful for all the disciplines, and I'm a theologian who tries to stay as close to scripture as I can. Fair enough. So when you look at different doctrines, I want to know how much you think we can understand the atonement compared to other doctrines. So if I look at, say, the omnipotence and the omniscience of God and timelessness, some doctrines make more sense to me and others I struggle with. So for the Trinity, for example, when I look at the Trinity, I think it's clearly biblical. I

think the Bible teaches there's one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each divine, and they're distinct persons. There's no logical contradiction in that, but it expands my categories to grasp because there is no illustration. The egg, the man who's a police officer, a husband and a basketball player, like no illustration works. So at best, what I think we can do is show that it's consistent with scripture doesn't contradict logic but it does unlock beautiful things like you talked about in the atonement that god is loving etc but it's just that there's a paradox that's there to me where do you place the atonement is it more towards that paradoxical or you say if we just read it we can really get into and understand this yeah I mean I think Henri Blochet talks about dogmatic rank and there there are things that carry

certain that carry more weight than others I mean Jesus even talks about Jesus shows that he says he's talking to the Pharisees and he said you neglect the weightier matters of the law or Paul Paul says, I'm about to share with you what is of first importance. Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God. So I do think there's a place for dogmatic rank in that some doctrines need to carry more weight than others. I think a criteria in that

is how much scripture talks about them and how clear that is in scripture. So I think one of the reasons, I think the doctrine of atonement is of utmost importance. I mean, Paul says, you know, I'm about to share with you what is of first importance. Christ died for us and rose from the grave, right? And then I think you just see it. I mean, the amount that it's talked about in the New Testament, I mean, even thinking about the Gospels of they're telling the story of Jesus, but like for Mark, half of the story is focused on one week of his life. Like he's saying the cross is massively important. But in terms of like how clear it can be, I mean, at one level, you could look at the atonement and say, well, it's debated so much, it must not be really clear. I could also say maybe it's so heavily debated because it is really important and there is a lot of clarity on it. And, you know, people debate less, say, the extra Calvinisticum, which is, I'll explain what that means because I know that

there's like one person who knows, but that like discussion gets at the idea of how is Christ in a human body and yet still omnipresent? Because if he's God, he's omnipresent. And so how is he in a human body, but he's also omnipresent. Now, I think that's a really important discussion. I don't think it has that much dogmatic weight to it or rank in terms of Scripture doesn't address it very directly. It's not a major emphasis in Scripture. And so it's an important conversation to have, but it doesn't compare to the doctrine of atonement in saying, we need to know what it means when it says Christ died for our sins, because it says it over and over and over again, and it says it in really important places. So I do, I think that we can know this. I don't think that because there's debate that we should throw up our hands and say, it doesn't matter. Let me be provocative.

I think C.S. Lewis is wrong in mere Christianity, the way that he talks about the doctrine of atonement. And he basically says, well, we just need to know that he died and not necessarily like, you know, how it works. I think scripture talks about how it works and what he accomplished. And I think it not only invites us, but I would say compels us to understand that. About a dozen years ago, my dad and I wrote a book together, and it was kind of a theology 101. And what we tried to do to make it unique was sometimes theology books are just learn theology, and it's an intellectual exercise. There's a time and place for that. Then I read relationship books, and it feels like they want to make a relational point and kind of slap a verse on there and whatever

translation best makes the point they want to make relationally. And what we're trying to do is saying good theology should translate to our relationships with God, with others, and with creation. That was the goal of what we're trying to do. And I don't think a lot of people do that well. So I was curious reading your book, and I was wondering how much is Jeremy going to make connections? And I was just pleasantly surprised and thrilled. You get to the latter part of the book, and you really make these connections between the atonement and things like personal loneliness and other social ills. So how does that doctrine and that event from 2,000 years ago translate to some teenager today?

And you know the studies show millennials and Gen Z and all generations, there's a deep sense of loneliness that's there. Even though we've got more means to connect there's deeper loneliness how does that doctrine from 2000 years ago actually practically help say a young person who's trying to wrestle with loneliness and broken relationships yeah it's it's huge and that's that's a part of the problem for which christ came and you think about um the book of Ephesians, for example, it's this cosmic reconciliation is the way I would describe the first three chapters of Ephesians. Heaven and earth are coming together in Christ. And what you have in Ephesians 2 is this really clear connection between vertical reconciliation and horizontal reconciliation. So yes, Christ dies on the cross and reconciles us

to God. That's the vertical. But he also reconciles us to one another. It says, you once were far off, alienated from the people of God. And so part of the effects of sin is that we feel alienated, alone, separated on the margins. And Jesus comes and pursues the outcasts, identifies with the outcasts, not only in his life, but in his death. And he's crucified along with two criminals. And part of what he accomplishes for us in that is adopting us into a family. And that includes both a positive vision of a unity where we are bound together by the blood of Christ in a way that's stronger than being bound together by DNA today, and it also deals with the barriers that keep us from real

fellowship and community. So race is one of those. In Ephesians 2, it talks about Jesus through his death, tears down the dividing wall of hostility. This world has been torn apart by ethnic superiority, racism, all the way back to Genesis 3. And Jesus comes and tears down the dividing wall of hostility, unites us in Christ to where, in a church like mine, I mean, in our church, we're in Los Angeles, Los Angeles is a very diverse city. We have 116 different nations represented in our church. And yet, we can say what we have in,

the unity that we have in Christ is greater than all of the cultural differences that we have apart from Him. We think of time differently, we appreciate different foods, we think of family differently, and yet we're bound together by the blood of Christ in a way that we can genuinely say to one another, you're not alone. God is with you. God has adopted us into a family. And so I think the cross gives us a deep view of how we can have community. What we see in our society today is people just trying to connect on superficial affinity-based things. I like the same team. You like Taylor Swift. Let's go to the concert together. We can have a high, you know, we can kind of share that buzz together. But the cross says there's something

deep that ties us together that can withstand the difficulties of life and the transitions of life. Jeremy, how do you envision people using this book? It's a part of a series, kind of short studies in systematic theology. Fred Sanders, a colleague of yours and mine at Biola, wrote one of the Holy Spirit, which is great. There's a lot of depth packed into this, but I think it's about 140, 150 pages. Who ideally did you write this for, and how could people use it to learn from it? I wrote this ideally for people in the church who would like to get into theology. Like someone in the church who's serious about it and says, if somebody came and said, I

want to read theology, where should I start? I thought, this is the book that I would want to hand them. Here's a core doctrine. Here's me talking about it in a way that's deep. It's theological. It's going to make your mind work a little bit, but it's bottom shelf theology. I'm not spending the time in the book interacting with all the other scholars. That's what a lot of scholarship is, is you're interacting.

I'm not doing that. There's not a ton of footnotes. Anyone who reads the book who's in those conversations will it'll be obvious kind of who i am interacting with but i wrote this for people in the church i think it'd be great for serious-minded christians in the church who want to get into theology or for pastors who i mean one thing especially for pastors is i think we should be sharing the gospel every week but if you want to share the gospel every week, but do it in ways where it doesn't feel dull

or like you're saying the same thing over again, of understanding the multi-dimensional, this approach to the cross saying, oh, I'm approaching the gospel from different angles each week and where it's refreshing each week. So I think it'd be great for pastors and then anyone who's interested

in the doctrine of the atonement. Although I'm writing to the church and the pastors, I am trying to make a contribution into discussions in the doctrine of the atonement. I think that there is aspects of this that are unique in the conversation. Well, it's definitely a contribution. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Last question. I get asked a lot, emailed question. People go, my kids or my friend is in Southern California or LA or near Biola. I need a good church. And I sent them to your church, but I'd love you to just tell us where your church is at. Tell us what makes it unique and maybe how people could find it. Yeah. Yeah. So our church is called Reality LA. We're centered in Hollywood.

Our church building is in East Hollywood. But on Sundays, we meet in the morning in a high school on Sunset Boulevard. We're right next door to Netflix. I always like to tell people that we meet next door to Netflix, but we've got the best story in town. We may not tell it as good as them or have the production value, but we've got the best story in town. Love it. But then on Sunday evenings, we have an evening service at our church building, which is smaller. But one thing that's somewhat unique about our church is we believe that we want to show God's love to people in word and deed.

And so we proclaim the gospel. I mean, I preach, you know, long sermons through the Bible, pointing people to Jesus. But then Monday through Friday, we serve meals to the homeless community in East Hollywood. We serve a thousand meals a week, breakfast and dinner, Monday through Friday. And it's a beautiful ministry and just a glimpse of God's kingdom breaking in and even seeing how that's impacting our church. I mean, we just did baptisms maybe six weeks ago, and I think we baptized 19 people,

and I think three of them were people who had connected with our church through our meal ministry. So it was so sweet to see that. So, yeah, if people want to come, we would love to have them. There's lots of work to do. We need all the prayer we can get. But God's doing an amazing work. People love to hate on Los Angeles from the outside.

But I can tell you from the inside that Jesus loves LA. He's doing a great work here. We're seeing lots of renewal happening all over the city. I worked at the Dream Center for a year, which is in Hollywood, just right up the street. And we did very similar ministries for that year. And it was fantastic. So I love, in this book you're talking about, the atonement reconciles us with God,

but also with others and in physical creation. You're preaching truth, but you guys are out there caring for people relationally in meals, really backing up in a sense what the atonement means as you describe. Again, our guest is Dr. Jeremy Treat. It's simply called The Atonement and Introduction.

Wonderful, wonderful place to start. Again, it's not an apologetics book, although it intersects with certain apologetic ideas. It's a biblical theology and what atononement is why it matters and how it applies to our relationships before you click away make sure you hit subscribe we've got a bunch of other shows coming up on apologetic and worldview type topics you won't want to miss and if you want to come study with me and or with dr treat we've got although you don't teach in our apologetics program maybe someday we could get this going on the atonement our masters program is fully distance And it's the top rate of its kind information is below

We'd love to train you to become an apologist and if you're not quite ready for master's program We have a certificate program where we'll walk you through certain lectures and certain assignments and just kind of guide you to learn Apologetics there's a significant discount below jeremy this is fun we've got to do it again thanks for coming on and uh go buy all eagles that's right thanks sean grateful for you