Theology in the Raw - Is Penal Substitutionary Atonement Biblical? Dr. Andrew Rillera

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Join my Patreon Community for extra episodes, bonus content, event tickets and more! Get your Free Copy of When Faith is Forbidden here!Dr. Andrew Rillera holds a PhD (Duke University) and is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at The King's University, Edmonton AB. Andrew is the author of the pot-stirring book: The Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death, which challenges the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, the ex-Alice in Babylon conference is happening again. April 30th through May 2nd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We're talking about how we should think through artificial intelligence. We're talking about immigration and the gospel, mental health in the gospel, and two dialogical debates. One on Christians and war between Paul Copan and Shane Claiborne. That's going to be exciting. And we're also having a dialogical debate. between Pete Enns and Sandy Richter,

which is also going to be incredibly invigorating. They're going to be discussing the historicity of the Bible. All the information is at ThealogyDraw.com. Register soon to take advantage of the early bird special. Okay, my guest today is a former student of mine, which this might be the first time I've had a former student of mine on the podcast. That might be a doctor, now Dr. Andrew O'Leara. He holds a PhD from Duke University.

He also went to Fuller Seminary. Before that, he was at Eternity Bible College, where I used to teach. He is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at the King's University in Edmonton, up in Canada. Andrew is the author of The Pottering Book, The Lamb of the Free, recovering the varied sacrificial understandings of Jesus' death, which challenges the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. I wanted to have Andrew on to give him lots of time and space to unpack his views. the book is very, very thorough. I would even say it's exegetically dense. It's a slow read.

I mean, he's combing through text. He's talking about Hebrew phrases at length. He's interacting with scholars. He has done a ton of research and study on this topic. So whether you agree or not, I don't fully agree. I would talk about that a little bit at the end. I'm not quite convinced, but I really appreciated the work he went in. into it. And I mean, there's, I hate when people say, I don't agree with that book. Well,

there's a lot of things in the book that I agree with. Other things, I'm kind of like, I'm not sure yet. I'd need to do more study. And then other passages he looks at where I'm like, yeah, I'm not really convinced this is the best reading. But love, love the challenge of being driven back to the text of scripture as always. So this is a long episode, as you can tell. It could have been five more hours. And I felt like we're just kind of getting warmed up at the in, but it was pushing over two hours, so I decided to call it quit. So, yeah, buckle up, get ready for a really in-depth conversation here. So please welcome to show for the first time, the one and only, Dr. Andrew Rillera.

All right, we're here with Andrew Alara. Andrew, how are you doing up in Canada right now? What's the weather? Great. Today is actually warmer than normally this time of year. So it feels like what probably most of the world thinks fall is in late October. You're in Edmonton, right? So you're like up there a bit.

Yeah, about six hour drive north from the Montana, Alberta border. All right, right on. Well, dude, I don't know if we've seen each other since our EBC days. Do you know, I don't recall hanging out after that? Yeah, it's definitely been a while. I can't say it has it has been some time because I think you were already out of California before we moved and then it was we were there sparse and yeah yeah well I'll say I'll tell you and for our audience I you know I taught at Eternity Bible College for five years you were there

right when I started I think it was when you were just finishing up but you were one of if not the best student I ever had is one of those obnoxious students that whenever you'd push back, I felt the urge as a professor to kind of say I need to show this kid, you know, why he's wrong, but I was like, dang, I think you might be right on pretty much everything you'd say.

We'll see if that that holds here. I mean, I mean, we found a lot of commonality. We didn't, I don't know too many things we actually disagreed with, but yeah, you were pretty off the chart. you ended up going to Fuller, right? Seminary

after and then And then Duke Forer for Masters. Yep. Yep. And did you study under Doug Campbell at Duke or? Yes, I use my advisor or supervisor but you take coursework

the first two years. So I was with all, everyone. I also luckily got in there before Harwass finished. Okay. I think he was officially retired, but he was still teaching like a class or so. And so got to do a seminar with him. Richard Hayes actually came back for a semester officially and did Romans with him. And that was the, that's where I actually wrote like a bulk of my dissertation was for that

seminar. Wow. Yeah, I went, I went kind of ADHD, hyper-focused. And in that April, I wrote a like 60,000 words or something and then was like, well, I should build on that. That'll be what I would do for my dissertation. So yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, let's jump into your book. So you wrote this book, Lamb of the Free,

which challenges the doctor to penal substitutionary tonate from a very robust, thorough, to say the least, action genital perspective. I just want to say up front, man. I heard about your book, didn't have space to read it for a while, but finally got to it, spent the last month working through it very slowly. But yeah, the way I approached this topic, and I've said, I've said this on the podcast before, I have no theological need for penal substitution.

It's part of my sociology I grew up with, didn't look into it very thoroughly, maybe read, probably half a book on the topic before I read yours. But I don't, for me, as I approach every issue, it's kind of like, hey, if it's biblical, let's keep it. If not, let's ditch it. I don't, and, you know, people that say, well, if you ditch people that say, well, if you ditch people substitutions, you're undoing the gospel, blah, blah, blah, blah, but, you know, but if it's not part of, if it's not, if it's not biblical, then we need to have a gospel that is actually biblical. So that's where I'm coming from. I found, I mean, your book is interacting with, some serious, meaty, ongoing scholarly debates that I'm just not familiar with, you know?

And I didn't have 10 months to go and read all the sources you're interacting with, including Jacob Milgrams, you know, whatever, 2,500-page comment here on Leviticus and other books. So for me, I'm like, man, this sounds pretty compelling. I don't know if I would have to do more research to agree or disagree, but you made a very thorough and compelling case. So why don't we start with you giving kind of a 101 summary of maybe not the whole book, but you spend the first half, 150 pages or so,

looking at the Old Testament sacrificial system. So if it's possible, could you give a five, ten minute summary of the Old Testament sacrifices as you're reading them and why the OT sacrifices specifically

are not designed intrinsically. to under any kind of like penal substitutionary atonement whether animal is taking the sin on behalf of humans so it's like oh man what a time so it depends so how i how i i i can summarize this from different angles so if we're wanting the discussion to be a bit more on why i came to the conclusion that penal substitutionary tonement doesn't have an exegetical anchor,

then that's a little bit different than how I organize the book itself. So I wanted the book to be a secondary, the penal substitutionary stuff, to be like an important but an implication. Like, therefore we see this. And framing the book more in terms of

we're going to look at sacrificial imagery or sacrifices so that we can understand sacrificial imagery applied to Jesus' death. But since I keep making nods toward this is why the understandings of sacrifice that undergird penal substitutionary atonement don't hold up, then I also dealt with texts about the saving significance of Jesus' death. So it's not a book on the saving significance of Jesus' death per se across, you know, it's a book on interpreting a sacrificial imagery. apply to Jesus, so that we can understand those, those texts, those, those images

well in the New Testament and make the distinctions that need to be made. So then I have a chapter toward the end, just before the conclusion about, okay, here is some other texts that are either confused to be about sacrifice in the New Testament, but they're not, and or this is some sort of penal substitutionary atonement, like key text, right? Like, this is, see, like, of course, penis substitutionary atonement's in the Bible. Then we read Roman date 3 or 325 or Galatians 3, 13 or whatever it is. So that became part of, I put that at the end because it's like, it's related to the sacrificial understandings.

And so I'm still, my angle in the book is sacrificial understanding to Jesus' death. Okay. If that makes it, right? So with that, though, when we're understanding the Old Testament sacrifice of the first half of the book, I wanted it to also be in it, like, almost stand alone as it, as it were. Like, yes, it has a certain angle. And I'm, well, you always have, yeah, there's always a, he always has to be writing from perspective. But I want it to more or less be, let's just understand Old Testament sacrificial system.

Just. And with that then, the so-called prophetic critique. of sacrifices before we're doing everything else. So I, yeah, so as, as that first half of the book stands, it's, it's not me trying to do like a full-on, what are all the antecedents that the New Testament authors use to understand Jesus' depth. Does that make sense?

It's more the sacrificial. So I just, like, limited in scope because sometimes there's, there's folks like, oh, even this passage to that passage. It's like, well, I set this up, the introduction, say you can't do it with everything. It's also not a book on Jesus, that's per se. It's a, it, you have to have a limited scope there. So all those caveats, now I'll explain, hopefully, in brief.

So instead of going through all the sacrifices, um, what I, what I'll do here is, I mean, it's also in the book, but, um, an easier way to introduce, I guess, the different sacrifices in the Old Testament is to first distinguish between two, broad categories of sacrifice. So again, there's multiple, and in each category, there's going to be a few sub-divisions there of types of sacrifices. But in general, you have a shared, sacred meal. So it's the sacrifice makes the meal that you're eating holy and sacred because it has proximate, it's touched the altar. So it's made holy proximity to God. Therefore, the offer these eat that in a state of ritual period.

So I have a chapter on ritual period as well because you need to understand those things. But to keep it on sacrifice, that's the main function. I'd say what Dejvrile sacrificial system is about is about an enacted union between the people and God mediated by the priest and having shared sacred meals. Both ritual impurity, again, right now I don't want to summarize it, and sins. So ritual impurity is not sinful. But they both produce sins and ritual impurity produce distinguishable yet essentially contamination onto sacred space. And that threatens then the communion.

So you need a way to purge the sanctuary, God's space, from these pollutants that are either generated by ritual impurity or certain sins, not all sins, but certain sins. So you have a, these are the second category of sacrifices then are related to the Hebrew Kepere. So how I translate is decontamination. So it's a means of disinfecting the sacred space from these contaminants that are caused by ritual impurities or certain sins. So you, the, the, the, atoning, and I have a whole thing on like why that word is just

too broad. So when I use atonement, first I'm limiting it to sacrificial atonement, not notions of reconciliation or things like death. It's limited to the Kupare sacrifices. And so what these atoning or decontaminating

sacrifices do, the purse sanctuary, and now that communion can take place again. Now there can be the sacred meal type sacrifices. So to distinguish these two, as well, another way to mark this, or how the Torah talks about it, is if a sacrifice has a decontaminated

function, then the one whose contaminants are being decontaminated? A lot of decontaminated. The offer, the offer cannot eat it. So when you're eating a sacrifice, it has, it, it has nothing to do with decontamining, with Kepere, with decontaminating sacred space. Keeper is the Hebrew word often translated. For atonement, yeah, as aton. Yeah, to atone. Yeah, sorry, thanks. That's fine.

So they have these two main categories. And so then, so there's, like I said, I think the decontaminating, the Kepere, the atoning sacrifices serve the sacred meal ones so that that could keep happening so that God would stay and meet with his people. Otherwise, too much pollutants as the prophet Ezekiel vividly depicts, the impurity accumulate in the in the in the sacred space and god uh leaves so you're we're we're trying to prevent that from happening that's that's this prevent that from happening but then the wrench in the whole system is that that the the sacrifices that can decontaminate pollution can't decontaminate

everything they can only decontaminate well they're limited in the object what is decontamity what where what is being perched and that is the sanctuary so it's limited to that. And because there's certain sins, Leviticus maps out in 18 and following, Leviticus 18 and following, that pollute not just the sanctuary, but the person themselves and the land. Those sins, along with some scholars, just categorize them as moral impurity because the language of impurity or contamination is used there. But these are sins that generate an impurity beyond the capacity and scope of the atoning or keep her sacrifice. because the Kippeer's sacrifices only decontaminate sanctuary.

Moral and purity, those sins decontaminate, I mean, sorry, don't contaminate. They contaminate the sacred space, the sinner, and the land. So the remedy for those, there's no sacrificial remedy for that. The remedy for those sins is on the individual level, the death of the offender and or just divine, forgiveness and cleansing the way David asked for it. Purge me, cleanse. Because there's nothing that could do it beyond God's own cleansing. And then that happens on analogy, not to a sacrifice, but to the ways bodies are purified from ritual impurity.

So ritual impurity, the way people are cleanses through a combination of time and water washing. And there's a couple more nuances in the book. But so, anyway, to keep it broad. When the Bible talks about a remedy for moral impurity for those sins that pollute beyond the capacity of the atomic sacrifice, they don't go to sacrifice because it's already, it doesn't cleanse bodies. It purges sync and we have to deal with something else. So what the biblical authors go to is water washings or time that being washed by the divine spirit, by God. God's own just cleansing with Hissip or whatever, as David says, that is what purges the person. And then it's exile that purges the land as it rests.

It's kind of like the communal level. The time spent away is what then cleanses the land and allows for a reentry. So that's important because the day of decontamination or the day of atonement is not this be all end all remedy. for sense. It was very limited from the get-go. God-ordained limits. And this is why the prophets, they don't imagine the restoration being some grand day of decontamination. They imagine that's on analogy to the exodus of a rebooting, so a new covenant. And so you need deliverance, you need redemption from captivity, exile, and from the covenant curses, and the covenant to be inaugurated. So, um,

To like summarize that point, hopefully in like a line that this latter point, that the atoning sacrifices do not take the place of the covenant curses, of God's, yeah, covenantal discipline. The curses that attend the covenant are for these grave sins, the moral and purity sins that pollute beyond the capacity of the atoning sacrifices. and that's where I think a lot of misunderstanding can come in is thinking that whatever the atoning sacrifice is doing is that it embodies or represents the due penalty or something or consequence the covenant discipline that the sinner deserves for having done whatever it is that they did however and then put that on to the covenant curses but the covenant curses come in precisely for problems they solve the problems the sacrifices cannot.

That makes sense. Like that is a way, it's both a consequence and a discipline and a means of cleansing. So this is why the pro like this way it's the exile is in the end of the story. It's penultimate, second to last. Restoration, blessing is final. And it's because that time spent in, in exile and captivity and covenant death that it's that that purifies,

decontamines the land. and the people. So hopefully that makes a little bit more sense. We could add more to that. Let me try to summarize it back just so I know I understand and for the audience. So there's lots of different kinds of sacrifices. I mean, there's some that

several that aren't even animals, right? There's like cereal offering or whatever. The ones, the kinds of sacrifices that the worshipper eats have nothing to do with any kind of like atonement, Kipper, decontamination. the ones that are that do have to do with atonement aren't taking care of all moral sins, but specifically ceremonial impurity or whatever language you want to use,

you know, the sinful worshiper contaminating objects in the tabernacle and so on. So you have this whole list of other moral sins that the Old Testament sacrifices, none of the Old Testament sacrifices were ever designed from the get-go, to deal with. Would that be a correct? Yeah. Okay. Contrary to popular opinion,

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Okay, so that's live momentous.com promo code t-itr. Yeah, like there are sins of like like like defrauding someone. Yeah. Normally, you have to intentionally do that. So normally some people say like, you know, like intentional sins, you know, or sin with the high hand, you know, they, these, you know, are always a beyond. those are one of the grave sins. There are, like, that's true in principle, except for repentance can downgrade certain

intentional sins, which is like, so the reparation offering, often called guilt offering or the Asham, that's actually one that could be commuted to a financial contribution, both to the temple, and then 20%, if I remember, yeah, I think it's 20% restitution on on whatever it is that you defrauded someone. So there's some intentional sins that because of repentance kind of get like, as it were, like, downgraded on the scale of sins and they can be dealt with. But I don't think I said this actually earlier. So the moral impure, the great, those ones that are beyond the capacity of the

tonic sacrifices, those are murder, sexual morality, adultery. Yeah, stuff like that. Did we say idolatry? Idolatry. False worship in there as well. So those are the three categories. And it's interesting to see the prophets on both Jesus interpret those categories in terms of also like heart, not just heart disposition of the individual, but on a societal level about

like if your economics are corrupt, that messes up your entire society such that anything your offering is is ill gotten therefore invalid and or they also say that that sort of exploitation is a form of murder in bloodshed so they're they're raising the stakes and saying the kinds of things that we're seeing going on here this isn't the kind of thing that could just be downgraded by by a show of repentance and offering sacrifice it you've jumped the line to where now there's no sacrifice remedy because this this qualifies as grave moral impurity. Does that make sense?

That makes great sense. I'm curious, I mean, what I was reading your long section on the Old Testament Sacrifice is you're citing all kinds of old testament scholars. Like it didn't seem like you're coming up with some kind of like novel theory or something. Is everything you said so far? Is this fairly widely agreed upon? Like this isn't like some new theory. Depends which scholarly niche you're talking about, I guess.

Because, you know, this is where this is why. I want to take up Milgram students, Roy Gain. Seventh-day Adventist, I believe. So much of fact-checked that I don't want to be making stuff up, but I'm like 95% positive. He's seventh-day adminsus. Roy G-A-N-E. Anyway, so I say that, like, either way, he's on a conservative wing for, like, just go with me here. I know these terms are messy, but, like, wanting to preserve a certain,

way of controlling the same significance of Jesus' death that has to be anchored in sacrifice so you need the sacrificial system to seed what you'd expect to find in the New Testament. So anyways, I think he does it, like he struggles hard to say, actually, here's how all the sacrifices purge the person. Here's kind of how, like, that death

of the animal is tied into the, um, the supposed deserve a death of the offender. And so that's why I spend a lot of time on Gaines argument and showing how it doesn't fit well. So what I'm saying is, I don't know, if you're gained follower and you don't, some people might just dismiss my argument, but I have yet to see someone like,

a debunk it. Like there's no one's been like, well, here, your observations here are wrong and this way. And like, like, what you think he's doing here. Like you misread gain or whatever. And he's actually saying, I don't know, like. But like, so there's going to be that whole wings of Jay Sclar, uh, Michael Morales.

And I kind of nod to them, but I deal with what I see is like the kind of like, the theological like father figure, as it were of, of trying to keep within Milgram framework for a lot of it. But then like they have this in my mind, there's strained readings and strain because I laid out. Like here's, here's why these moves don't make sense to me. on a grammatical, exegedical level. And how, you know, so I try to deal with the critiques of Milgram's view.

But I think Milgram as another, like, kind of father figure of a street. Like, there's a whole bunch of New Testament scholars as I'm citing that, like, this is, there's, there's like my nucia disputes, but like overall framework. That's what I was trying to like, I show my cards and how I interpret, for instance, ransom language in Levitical. 17, but every day, like, I was just looking at it again this morning. This is to kind of prep my mind more on different things, but Isaiah, I mean, Leviticus 1711, the, like, main kind of, I don't know if we're going to talk about it, but I was just, again, getting into it. And I was like, yeah, I offer two different ways of construing that, one taking it ransom

and one taking it as decontamination, like sacrificial, uh, key pair. And that's because of the root, I don't want to get into all this right now. The root, the Hebrew work can kind of go different ways. and the subdures it translates each variation in different words, ransom versus Atonement. And anyway, so I kind of say, look, either way you come at it, like here, I kind of have been convinced this way with Ian Feldman, Joel Baden, other folks that see this as restricted to the sacrificial key pair rather than a financial-ish, like ransom kind

of language here. But it doesn't matter in terms of the penal substitutionary. Either way you come at this, it won't move the needle on penal. substitution because um like what yeah and so i show that in in the book but like so what some people might go oh and like i myself i was like actually maybe i do kind of see it as as as uh ransom here in the vicar 17 um but it doesn't it it it has that has no effect on the penal substitutionary uh reading because um yeah Never mind.

It's in there. It's in the book. I don't want to get under right now until we're on. I just took us there by accident. But I'm trying to answer your question is there's my nucia that I'm sure there's some disagreements on. I try to stay out of like, here's like the general framework. And yeah, I don't want to always hedge.

So I'm sure. Like, here's what I think right now. But even on that, I can kind of go back and forth on how I'm reading Leviticus 17. But it doesn't, that doesn't impact the why this book has got the attention to this. It doesn't impact the, this is the, the, um, the penal substitutionary aspect of it. Um, and so again, it also doesn't impact. And this is more the reason of why I like on a scholarly level kind of said, well, we can, we don't really need to solve this aspect or, or, you know, get this sometimes.

Like, it's not really, wait, for the purposes of what I'm doing all, only this bit matters. Like, I don't need to argue a whole everything here. Um, and, um, and, and, and so for the academic reasons, it's because, well, if that nuance mattered for understanding something in the New Testament, then I'd have to be a bit more, like, sure about option A or option B. And so, yeah, like in my determination, it's kind of beside the point of the main project of understanding when sacrificial imagery applied to Jesus. And so when it comes to the ransom stuff, it's like, is, however you take Leviticus 17, is it going to help? you understand Mark 10 about, you know, ransom.

And I think the answer is no. And I show why when I get to that passage, why it's not within a sacrificial register. So anyway, like, if that makes sense, like, so I don't know, like, I don't want to over claim it at all. This is just like standard scholars in the old testament. There's going to be a lot of evangelical scholars who are like, you know, like, no, we just like, right game.

But, you know, and that's, until someone like actually goes, through my arguments and observations against gain, then it's just kind of like, okay, yeah, of course you wouldn't like it. Like, all right, but, um, would your, would your, the view you advocate for in general be much more popular among non-Christian, Old Testament scholars? I mean, you obviously draw a lot on, uh, Milgram, who people don't know is kind of like the, no, it's just a certain sector. Like, uh, so I brought this because, um, I'd, I'd like to,

so this book by Paul Sloan recently oh yeah pump his recently published a couple months ago maybe forget maybe August Jesus and the law Moses cites me a 10 in there only one minor point of disagreement which again doesn't move a needle in the penal substitutionary he's Christian though Baptist

David Moffat Christian also Baptist Madison Pierce you know like there's Matthew Tieson Christian And there's plenty of Logan Williams, Christian, there's a lot scholars are writing on, you know, the similar issues and issues of Jesus and the law, Paul in the law, et cetera. I think there's a lot of New Testament scholars that are Christian that are like, yeah, they hear. This is, you know, the, the, despite the kind of nuanced disagreements

between Baruch Levine and, and Schwartz and Milgram and whoever, Jonathan Clowons, like, overall, there's a general sort of understanding of, at least, like, none of them will say that sacrifices a substitutionary death, for instance. Oh, really? Because it just doesn't make, you can't, you can't have that. You can't have that in the system. The whole thing operates on not bringing death into the sacred space. So that's not like, there's so many reasons that I go out with with, it's not doing that.

It's not substituting. So again, like with the grave moral impurity, if you do something that's either cut off, which is more of like a God's, God, or movie kind of thing, or a capital punishment. But either way, the life of the offender is forfeit. it does not there's no sacrifice to substitute for a forfeit life your life is forfeit there's you're at the mercy of god that there's nothing there's that's not what is happening in the sacrificial system it's not substituting for the covenantal discipline the curses at an individual or a communal level that that's why leviticus's theology is like you need to you need

community of is real like you need to pay attention to because what this is preserving, yes, it deals with human sinfulness, but not these sins that are on another level that inherently cause social disintegration. When you're not united around the worship of God and there's idolatry and all that sort of stuff, when there's no fidelity in marriage and no fidelity socially because of murder, you're not loving your neighbor and loving God. Well, then the society collapses. There's nothing you can do to board that off in some sacrificial means. So, like, I'd say what is the consensus besides certain and not all, like, some of the

scholars that just named there would consider themselves conservative evangelicals, like Madison Pierce, but you don't get, and I don't know, I don't want to speak for anything, but they're on conservative, like, where they're teaching, things like that. And yeah, we don't need to. They wouldn't say that this is substitutionary death. That's not, like, I think that is pretty much like you're not going to get a substitutionary death interpretation by biblical scholars. The main point is, like, theologians, maybe.

You're reading of the sacrificial system is not some fringe view. Like, that's not, you're not coming up with some novel thing. You're interacting with a stream of scholarship, Christian, non-Christian, and taking a view that's been basically, I mean, said before. I'm curious, just if there's one text, I don't want to look at, I mean, there's, there's lots of like, what about this passage? What about this? And I know probably people listening, well, nobody really reads Leviticus, but the three people that are in Leviticus might have a verse or something to like, yeah, but what about this? I think more people are, though, because

of it more people are like, oh, Leviticus is my favorite book. And there's, you know, there's, I'm like, all right. This is good. This is good. It would, could I, could I go to, I would love to see how you look at how you interpret 1711, Leviticus. Is that kind of one of the big ones that people are like, what about this, you know, Should we give a brief? I mean, we could like, sure, if you want. So let me just, here I'll read it. 17 verse 10 says, if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn

among them eats any blood, and this is a, I think a ESV translation, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut them off from among his people for the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement. for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. So I think people just maybe reading that would just kind of, it'd be easy for them to assume some kind of like, well, atonement is for the life. And actually, but there's, is there any, is this even talking about sacrifices here?

Or how do we know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's just like, well, well, for like, there's a guy, hit this in chapter one and chapter four, I believe. Right now I have my book open to the chapter, chapter four. But in chapter one, what's important is the association with the killing of the animal, slaughter with an animal, as bloodshed in verse four. So verse four, well, it's in the middle of a sentence.

So verse three, if anyone of the house of Israel slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp slaughters it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord before the sanctuary of the Lord or the tabernacle of the Lord, he shall be guilty of bloodshed, he has shed blood, and shall be cut off from the people. So that association is already saying that whatever, what I think verse 11 is answering is, this is me now gliding toward a stance. I defend and argue in the book, but then say, eh, maybe not. And I'll, like, I'll go with, uh, atone function. Um, but it could go either way. So I'll, I'll do the one that supposedly is harder, where you're taking the Kippeer

root in Loviticus instead of making atonement, it's to ransom, ransom their life. Right? So that makes it. Yeah. Yeah. Ransom in verse 11. And, uh, so, uh, so, All the scholars who take it as ransom. Milgram, Fedder, guilders. Can't remember on the top of my head. Others who take it as ransom rather than atonement, sacrificial atonement. It's because this is the only instance and the whole thing

where being guilty of bloodshed is nullified. and that's just and that's it's like answering the question if this is a bloodshed how is how is

like if soldering this an animal is bloodshed outside of legitimate sacrifice at the sanctuary etc well then the sacrifice must be

making it not a bloodshed making it not a killing making it not like homicide um therefore god's i've given you you deposit the life the animal on the altar then that ransoms that that exchange that that removes um you can think of rant moro's removal it removes the third of death removes the pet of captivity it depends what's being removed but if you kind of have i i argue before from william gilder is it kind of like that the the you can just keep it keep the word kind of vague, like it affects removal. Does it remove contamination? Well, then it's decontamination, sacrificial atonement. Does it affect removal of being liable? You're

like being forfeit, being cut off because of blood guilt. Well, it's removing, it's removing that threat. So then, but then we typically would say that's ransom when it has to do with threat of death or things that are all right. It's a, it's a ransom. So, but what that's, it's not, it's not that my life is forfeit already. I did something that makes me, makes my life forfeit, I'm liable to get cut off. Shoot, I don't want to die. I know. God's not like, oh, here you go. I've given you kill this animal instead, throw it at my front door, and I'll accept that death as a ransom for your life that was forfeit. No, it's, you just killed an animal. This is Genesis 1. We're not supposed to be eating meat. So the concession is still dealt with after the flood of eating meat,

taking the animal's life. How are we incorporating the biological death of an animal into our worship of God in a way that doesn't make us liable to the things that our origin stories have told us is proper way to live in harmony with animals where we're supposed to be vegetarian and all this sort of stuff and we're not supposed to be taking their life. So the solution is God saying, if you if you deposit that blood and do this any other way any other format bloodshed only if you put it on the altar and a legitimate sacrifice at my sanctuary will that be removed from you so making your sacred meals right here is dealing with with the types of sacrifices at first are the the non-atoning ones the not the the the well-being offerings but then later it talks about

other ones. So I think there's some, again, there's nuance debate. Some of those scholars in the random, they're like, oh, there's only about peace offerings. And some are like, well, look, these other ones are mentioned, so it's about all of them. I think they're right. But it doesn't really, doesn't really matter. The point is that when it outside of legitimate sacrifice, this counts as a bloodshed, which means that the legitimate sacrifice is whatever it's, you want to conceptualize of that, it's not being conceptualized as a substitutionary death. Like, the life of the offer isn't forfeit first and then you offer this thing in place of your forfeit life, it's once you kill this thing, what you do next really matters. That's what's happening with this thing. If you deposit it

on the altar, then that bloodshed, you're guilty of shedding blood and it's repeated a bunch in verse four, and that's removed. I've given it. This is the designation. This is how you can go about your worship and not be liable for bloodshed so it's not does that make sense like it's not it's not a substitutionary death for the for the offender it's it's making it so that your slaughter of this animal gets reconceptualized ritually into a sacrifice and not bloodshed which means sacrifice is not bloodshed it's not it literally not that's the whole burden of that chapter is to address that And then it goes on to, okay, what about you're allowed to eat clean animals? So what about that?

And you can't sacrifice a deer. That would be wrong. So how do we nullify that? Well, okay, you bury it in the ground. That's just what it says to cover it. So it's the proper, what happens after you kill any mammal matters immensely. If it's an animal eligible for sacrifice, then it must be sacrificed. Otherwise, the person you slaughtered it is liable for bloodshed.

Then once you've ruined the process, you can't then offer another sacrifice. Oops, I shed blood. Let me offer it. Let me kill a second thing and nullify that. Like, it's not coming in to remedy a situation in which your life is already forfeit before there was any slaughter of an animal. It's the slaughter of the animal itself that is the problem. That's what frames the whole discussion versus three and four.

Is that like, this is the point that I feel like some people are really slow to get. And I feel like that it's really Christians, to be honest, because they're like, but how can that, just read the text. Like, it says that. And, you know, one recent review is like, well, there's goat demons mentioned in verse 7. Like, well, that doesn't knowify what it says of verse 4. Like, yeah, any illegitimate sacrifice still going to be bloodshed because of what verse 4 says. And then Deuteronomy is like, well, wait, when we're not in the.

camp and you can't just like, you know, walk, you know, 500 yards to the, to the sanctuary, you know, it might be 15 miles away or 50, whoever, well, now you do what you did with game, with like a deer or whatever. Like, if you're, if you're going to have, you know, lamb shops, then make sure you deal with the blood properly. And so that's mentioned in that verse as well. But so, Leviticus 1711 is, is answering on the ransom view, it's answering the bloodshed, the liability of bloodshed in verse 4 and showing how legitimate sacrifice nullifies that nullifies that charge.

The atoning view, which I also offer, and at the time I wrote it, I was like, yeah, it's probably it. But again, I could go either way, is that it's offering a reason not only for that charge, but also why it purges. So if you take it as affecting removal of contamination on the sacred space rather than affecting removal of the blood guilt

because he'd killed the animal. Affecting removal of the blood guilt, you'd say ransom, affecting removal of the pollution on the sanctuary, atonement. Yeah, we're all following. So taking that second view, the life then takes on a more like,

oh, this is why. All we know up to this point is that, the fact that doing these sacrifices, the purging ones, putting it on the horn to the altar in a certain way. Actually, maybe now is a good time. The ones that you eat, the ones that don't have no atonement, have completely separate blood rituals.

The blood goes different places, depending on what kind of sacrifice it is. If it's a decontaminating Kepere sacrifice, it goes on the horns of the altar. The excesses poured down onto the ground. So it either goes horned out or altar, horns of the incense altar, which is in the Holy of Holy Holies, or it has sprinkles on the veil, and then once you're on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holy. Um, we only know that, the fact that those blood manipulations purge the sacred space, because that's what it says, that's purging my sanctuary or whatever, like, there'll be these

comments, um, but there, maybe the question is why. And so maybe if, if, if you take the second view of Leviticus 1711 that is affecting removal, it's still talking about that removal of contamination from the sanctuary, well, then the life of the animal, uh, is like, oh, it's because we already know from all the ritual impurity stuff that's been dealt with, that it's the forces of death. Well, that's how Milgram puts it. I think it's more forces of finitude, like our beginnings and endings, because things that generate ritual impurity aren't just death, but maybe like the ending of life, but maybe

we could just talk about like our mortality or something like that, our corruptibility and the fact we reproduce beginnings and endings, that's what I say in the book. But either way, it's, so you have death associated things, mortality. finite finitude things associated to generate impurity, contamination on the sacred space. So then the life idea would make sense of, oh, what removes that? Why does it remove that?

We already knew that it removed it. But now we know why because it's life. So life overwhelms the forces of death or the forces of mortality and finitude and things like that. At the time that, and I still think that does make good. since, but if you take that away and you go to ransom view, well, then you're just left with, these are just divine commands. Why does it affect removal when you do the, the purgation sacrifices and all that?

Well, just because God willed it so. And also, killing any animal is bloodshed. So why are you not liable for bloodshed? Oh, because when you do this in the right way, then God's given it to remove that charge. from you because you've deposited back where it belongs. So either way you take it, you're not moving the needle on penal substitutionary Atomid. So whether you take a ransom or atoning view of Libraica 17, neither of those would fit

within a PSA penal substitutionary atone. No, no. And the one, too. So another, I got a fine time. I was sick and whatever to write. So it'll be my inaugural substack response. just a substack not for me because I don't have the I don't have the will nor does or yeah I guess the desire or I guess energy to like have like an ongoing substack I just not that kind of person but I do want to deal with like the kind of aftermath of Lamb of the Free so I'm going to start one on there and I'll and I'll write this all up but in this review the there's some pushback on on this verse and what I'm saying and I think there's some misrepresentation of what I said there anyways, that's a whole other thing.

But then the scholars cited that supposedly, like, disagree with me, even though I offer two different ways, they specifically say it's about the bloodshed in verse four. Like, that's all what's doing. And they go even farther and say, you can't use this to talk about sacrifice in any other place because it's so unique. So it's like, even if, even if what's saved, the representation was right and I was wrong. and you take fetter yeah it's like fetters you still won't have penal substitution there's a whole he has an explicit note this is not substitution see William guilders you know it's not penal substitution he lays out his his thing so it's like even if you go with this and okay sure

I was wrong even though I think the the representation what I said is is off a bit you and you go oh look the scholar it's up fetter he he let's go with him you won't get you know substitute don't with him either so um that that's, I think, the main point in terms of like this, this conversation and the reason, like I said, the book is popular. It's like, if you want to, if you want to sort out the minutia, then yeah, get into it. I, for my purposes, I'm like, I can go either way with these things. But, yeah. Well, I want to, I do want to leave a lot of room for the New Testament. And I appreciate, I want to honor your focus in the book of not primarily tackling everything on

penal substitution and writing a holistic rebuttal to that. So I appreciate, I don't want to go against a grain of your focus in the book. At the same time, I, you know, I think I'm much more familiar with the New Testament. And there are some passages there. I would love to talk through. I want to make sure that we have space for that. So can you, how about this? Before we get to the New Testament, Paul in the general letters in particular, can you give a like a brief summary of how you see the prophetic, the O.T. sacrificial system and the prophetic critique of that system, if you want to word it like that. And what is the hope of eschatological, if you want to say, forgiveness? Just to kind of give us a quick bridge to the New Testament.

Sure. So the prophetic critique, I don't think, is of sacrifices per se. I think, It is about, there's a few different critiques, again, like, so it depends which passage. But in general, they're making one of a few claims, either A, the sins that y'all are liable for are already beyond the capacity. Like, they're the ones that don't have sacrifice for remedy. So, and then part of the, part of the purses listed in Leviticus 27 and Deuteronomy 20 to 30, but Leviticus, well, I think they both mentioned this. At least Leviticus does. But the God says, I won't.

Once you've reached out, I will no longer accept. Like, even if you're pre-exile and the curses are coming, part of the start of the covenant discipline is no longer. Basically, God's not saying there's no remedy. Those were the remedy. I'm taking away your remedy. It's saying, no, you've polluted it so much that the function of what these were supposed to do, preserving our relationship, our communal shared meals.

and you think you're communicating with God? No, I'm not accepting that. You've corrupted it so bad that you can't even do the regular things that we're to be doing. So that's one angle. It's so like, you know, like rejecting these, the language of in the prophets, God rejecting the sacrifices or whatever, it's just borrowed straight from the curses,

which again, the curses come from the things that you can't have a sacrificial remedy for anyways. And what it's saying is despite the fact that it's still standing, right? So Jeremiah, We had the Temple of Lord, Temple of the Lord. Know that you're on the up. You've crossed the line to the covenant curses. That's what Jeremiah is saying.

Judgment is coming. You've already, and you've already started. Yeah, it's already started. The dominoes are falling. The culmination of captivity and all that, that's coming. But just because that hasn't happened, it's kind of the Old Testament's already not yet, but in negative format of the curses. It's already here, but not yet fully.

Watch out. So that's one angle. The other angle is when they're, when they say you're, this is from Jonathan Clowens and I go a little bit, build on him a little bit more. But Clowens makes the point about the economic corruption is such that now what you're offering, though, it's invalidated because it's not properly owned. And that was actually, which we didn't say, but that's what the handling is about. Yeah, right.

Especially when you distinguish which ones get it and which ones don't and why and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, the handling ritual is not a, okay, and there's double handling. It's different than a single and all that sort of stuff. The handling is not transferring your guilt to the animal. It is a side of ownership is what you argue in your book. Yeah. And that's a single handling gesture, which distinguishable from a double handling gesture, which you see on the goat of the day of the tootment that is not offered to Yahweh sent away. Okay. That basis, though, proper ownership. You've got to have, like, it's got to be yours. This is also the logic behind why you can substitute a mammal for birds and or grain because

it's just what's properly owned by someone. It's like you're bringing in the cleaning supplies. So when our kids were younger learning to clean, you know, you don't cry over spilled milk, but you got to clean it. But they also will make a bigger mess. But you want to teach responsibility. So they're like, give me the paper towels or whatever. You know, I'll do it with like they're bringing something to have some responsibility.

And that's what we're doing. So it's ownership. So the profits are like, you don't properly. own anything. The economic situation is so corrupt that there is yeah, what you're offering is ill-gotten.

So it disqualifies. You fail to offer something that's legitimately owned. Then where I go deeper, and even more than that, I think, is that they're saying this counts as murder, which is another reason you have, you can't, you've crossed that line again of

you're now into things that have no sacrificial remedy whatsoever. So that's where I think the critiques are in general. Again, when one passage might go one way or the other or kind of emphasize one and all that, but it's, yeah, generally one of those two, three-ish things.

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We should have, I just briefly addressed the Passover, right? Because this is kind of outside the Levitical sacrificial system, and Jesus is described as the Passover lamb. And, you know, before reading your section on the Passover, I was kind of like, I don't know, it's kind of like, it seems substitutionary. Like, I'm going to kill your firstborn son unless you kill this animal. So the animal will die instead of your firstborn son. maybe it's not penal penal you know but it seems substitutionary but then I read your

section I'm like oh wow it's a lot more complicated how about let's do you tell me what you found what you what you found you tell me what you found convincing so I got to do comprehensive checks all the time now with with my had learned to do this with my students well tables have turned I used to be your student you'd Yeah, you're going to, well, to my, you caught me with a pants down. I would not be able to summarize your section. I did read it, but your book is pretty thick, and so I couldn't hold it all in my head. Lots of things were falling out.

You just remember the vibe. I'll take that. I do remember when I was reading it saying, oh, I haven't considered that. Oh, that's interesting. Look at the passage again, rereading Exodus, and say, huh, this actually does make sense. So that's my punt, but. Yeah, okay, okay.

That's fair. I remember vibes as well. Go back. Wait, what was that? That seems honestly, same. Dude, that's why I asked for things in advance because as periodically as this comes up. I'm like, I sometimes don't even remember what my observations were, all in them all together.

Well, the one thing you said, you did. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no, you. I was going to say, though, it's not, I mean, well, I even said it. Like, even if there's some kind of substitution, it's not a penalty. The death was not a penalty. Like the Israelites who had the blood on the door weren't averting God's punishment, was it?

Although they weren't averting God's judgment on all the firstborn of the land. So, yeah, anyway, why is it not a penal substitutionary? It's, well, it's, it's very, very, uh, that section is long for a reason. Uh, so it's like we fixate on, they have, they're having a meal. All right. They need to kill the lamb. Um, it's a, it's a meal. Um, so the function of the, it's not the death of the lamb.

It's, and it's not even just the lamb. of the lamb. So I go through the most, the closest analogy to what's going on with the blood on the doorpost and what's involved with the hyssop is to decontaminating

a house from lepra. So not just people can get leprera and it's not Hansen's disease, it's not leprosy today. It's more like eczom and psoriasis or things that make your skin flaky white, a variety of

like what we would probably consider minor skin conditions. Anyways, there's also stuff that it could pollute garments and how homes and it's still called lepra, you know, but the coloration, whatever, but what it designates is leper. And so the rituals there of purging the house from that when there's when there's been the contamination of leper. that's what the Passover blood manipulation looks like the most. So if we're going to, we need to figure out, right, the way history or exodus proceeds, if you have something that's like a one-off, you're still trying to look for. What, how close, like, where, we need interpretive helps.

You know, like, what's going on here? So it's not the death of the lamb. It's the, it is the blood mixed with Hissup posted in a certain way on the door frame. it's that whole thing along with all the other components of the meal it's the whole event that will cause the destroyer to see it it's visible to see it and pass over well actually I go into it's protect there's protection and so it's a it's an apotropaeic function which is more like a preventative so it's a preventative function and there is some you know some I tried to stay as much with like final form of the text and you know canonical

form and stuff because we're dealing with, again, New Testament reception of these things and applying it to Jesus. But it seems likely that what became in Libidicus, was it 13 or 14? I think it might be 14, wherever the house one is, it's one of those, that it might have been, as it gets incorporated into the Torah, it's a after the fact. like final kind of fumigation of a house. But it seems like it might have had, and the Passover then is the link,

it might have also had rituals like that, an opatropaeic function, a preventative function. You do this ahead of time to stave off. It's protective. It's a protective thing. Now, if any one of those elements, though, doesn't happen, the firstborn is still liable in the first instance

of what's going on, of the of the historical exodus but it's so it's not singularly focused on you killed this lamb for a meal um anything in that whole you don't do you don't do the celebrate the Passover appropriately with the right herbs etc and and all the components eating it was in that time frame you know all that then the first one's uh in in jeopardy um but it's not like So it's taking this ritual as a whole. The other thing is that historical exodus was not a sacrifice. There's no altar.

There's no burning of portions to God. There's no priest. And this is why in the first one, they're supposed to roast it. Roasting is a big no-no for sacrificial meat. That only direct fire on the altar. That's God's portion. That's what distinguishes it. Sacificial meat needs to be boiled for the humans to eat.

You can't have it touching fire directly. And the fact that they're eating it, as you said before, any sacrifice that is eaten is by definition rule. It's not atoning. Yeah. And so that first one, I mean, it's not a sacrifice and it's prolecta. It's, it's, it's, we're about to be delivered, but let's celebrate it in advance. So it's a deliverance thing, ritual and, and a protective. It's a, it's an obotropet. It's a protective thing. So when it comes to the first one, though, it's claim, the claim in the rest of Torah is because of the Passover, God has a right and a claim on the firstborn.

And people just take that and run with it and say it's because it's substitutionary, whatever. Instead of looking at how the Torah itself defines, what does God write to the firstborn look like? What is going, is, yeah, how does this play out? And so what I show is one, subsequent Passover's when they are sacrifices and incorporated into the liturgical calendar. so you have the altar, et cetera, and you're doing it that way.

Again, no Kippeer, none of that's mentioned. And the firstborn's life is not threatened from with subsequent passovers. They're not thanking God as a Thanksgiving offering, a well-being subset of the well-being offer. They don't say, oh, yay, you know, you spared our firstborn year after year. So what, but the right to the firstborn is played out, and they are, are to it's God's rights, the first point of like everything, by the way, not just humans. But you, what's funny is, so you have like a donkey or whatever, you redeem that with a lamb. But you cannot redeem. So you can't offer a donkey. So instead you offer a lamb in his place.

So what goes to God, it doesn't mean that it all gets incinerated on the altar. So there's also some scholars that are like, this is Israel child sacrifice. Like they used to sacrifice their first orange or something and this is a way to get out of it. Um, no, because, when, when humans go to God, they become permanent sanctuary workers, Samuel, you know, that's a, and then this firstborn episode in the Torah. So instead of the firstborns going to serve the sanctuary, God substitutes, here's where substitution comes in, the Levites. The Levites take the place of each family's firstborn to be dedicated sanctuary workers. Subsequent firstborns, like there's a mismatch in the initial counting of the math. So then there's a ransom, an exchange,

not a ransom from death like that's what you ransom isn't always death it just means you are it's this thing in exchange for some situation and the situation is being a lifelong temple worker sanctuary worker so in substitution for your manpower as it were there you offer a monetary ransom to like basically pay for your work that you would have been doing So does that like the substitution happens with the Levites. The lamb, lambs cannot redeem firstborn, human firstborns. Only animals that are ineligible to be sacrificed does a lamb feature in the firstborn redemption process. So if Passover really was a substitutionary death for the firstborn and has established God's right of all firstborns, human, animal, then wouldn't the lamb,

be the most obvious substitution way of redeeming a human firstborn? Yeah, but that's exactly what you don't find. That's exactly what is prohibited. The lambs only substitute for firstborn of animals that cannot be sacrificed. Human firstborns were substituted by the Levites, and subsequent ones are then redeemed by a monetary gift to the same. sanctuary. Okay. So I think like like in terms of our like seating and going forward like just making that negative argument about it's not it's not a substitutionary death and what happens with the

first one I think confirms that that is the way Passover was not understood to be the means by which you substitute the death of the firstborn however justified or unjustified or random or whatever. It's just not it doesn't function that way in the narrative. So yeah like why would I hold that yeah assuming all that's true I mean it just um it still seems that you know that the god the destroyer going through and killing he would go in kill the firstborn of every house that didn't have the blood that's a result of a dead animal um and he would pass over the house that did have the dead animal so in some sense there's still some seems to be some kind of semblance of substitution, the house with the dead animal, that had the dead

animal, didn't have the firstborn killed, which was an act of judgment. He says in Exodus 12 that I'm going to come in and, what do you say, execute judgment on all the firstborn of the land, beast, man, gods of Egypt, and so on. Is that, I mean, is there some, maybe that the, maybe substitution isn't the totality of what's going on, but isn't that a kind of substitution? I'm just a genuine question. I'm just not going to give a gotcha. I might be like, you know what? Is that big sense to what I'm asking?

Well, I think, let me, so you're asking, because the firstborn doesn't die. Yeah. And to have a meal, this animal did have to die. Yeah. And it, yeah. Therefore, substitutionary death. Like, houses with premise,

houses that killed the animal averted the death of the firstborn the other what if what if there's combined families I guess it's like hey you can team up so one

one covers multiple like it's not a one to one thing it's not just like they're not nuclear families that's another like it's it's the house it's the protecting the house it's not it's not it's not yeah the blood is affecting the edifice not not the person and that's just one of

the consequences of failing to to go through like this is part of you know a kind of reap what you so so Egyptians took firstborns or the males and all you know of Israelite houses now they're first foreign males so not just first foreign any male the Egyptians were taking. But I see it like is more the reason that is the consequence, I think is more tied into the like, reap what you so kind of mentality from the Egyptian impression. But it is offering protection of an, it's like you're in the safe house. And as I say, like things that then you say there's a, there's a fine for doing something. The fine is not substituting for whatever it is that you did. It's just that is the, the constant.

of failing to go through all these things. And so it's like collapsing the consequence with the cause and effect of before, I think is just unjustified for one, the reasons I said about, well, then you would see this. If that was really the point, then you, that is what would be repeated in the subsequent Passover celebrations, like that would end relation to the first point in particular, but it's not. So that to me is pretty big evidence that in the reception of this, meal of this of this event and Israel's subsequent history and textual tradition it it did not see

this thing as an exchange of the firstborn going going forward that that was just one of the the consequences of protection the other thing is that the reception history just of the Passover in general I don't not aware and this of of Jewish interpretations of pre of saying we the south the passover what we is a substitutionary uh death exchange for the firstborns and going on like that's just not on on their on their radar it's not uh like we don't see this interpretation attested um so isn't that pretty big indication as well um so like um it's it's the inverse, well, we've got to hear in verse 13, it's called a sign, right?

The, the, you don't get any language, this is from Gilders, there's little evidence for the magic of sympathetic substitution. The text never indicates the blood substitutes for the blood of those in the house. It's an inference. That's not trying to, like, there's pre, it's an inference that people are making by connecting

certain dots that the text itself isn't connecting, but also what does the text say about the blood, it's a sign, it's seen and then God will see and remember. So it's this remembrance function that has a double remembered.

God remembers, and then subsequently, when Israel's doing it after it, they remember it. Like, that's one of the functions of the well-being is remembrance. So, then do this in remembrance of me. Like, so it's like, it's telling us that it's a, that the story

itself is saying, this a sign. It's a sign of remembrance for God's protection. Protection of the edifice and then in subsequent history it's not, to my knowledge, taken as the way gilder's

taken as a that the blood substitutes for the blood of those in the house. That's assuming that sacrifice is about death, which again, Leviticus 17, either way you take it, says it, it's not. What is, what is happening isn't, isn't a, isn't a, it's only a death of it, if it's

outside of legitimate divine command. To answer my question, I mean, to agree with you, the blood, the death slash blood can avert judgment, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's substituting for the judgment. Yeah. I wish I had this up, William Gilders puts us really well. not in a s actually not even so i quote him when he's talking about sacrifices but um he he he maybe i'll try to find it as we as we move on to whatever it is you also wanted to talk about um because it'll be applicable to whatever about this this institution point let's

i'm sure i mean we've we've still been over an hour and i i i uh i don't want to exhaust either of us too much before we get to the new testament or exhaust my audience who might have been skipping ahead during this whole thing. Glazed over. Hopefully not. Yeah. Okay.

Let's get to the New Testament. Oh, I go. Okay. How about? Okay. I found it if you want. So this is from Gilders. I cite them throughout the book,

but here's from blood ritual on the Hebrew Bible page 175. And he says, I ran some, so he specifically talking about Labetica, 11. But a ransom should not be equated with a substitute. A ransom frees a person from some sort of danger. A substitute takes the person's place. This act of substitution may free a person from danger as is the payment of a ransom, but the mechanism is different. A half shekel of silver may save

someone from the danger being struck down in a plague, but the silver is not that person's substitute. The silver is not struck down in its place. And goes on, oh, that probably Well, yeah, I don't want to get into, because now he's dragging us back into Leviticus 17, and I don't want to get there. But it's, he's saying that, like, so when you add the other components of the ritual, right? It's not just the blood that's tied to the firstborn. It's the whole thing. Like, nowhere is that link made blood, firstborn death. It's this whole event will protect from this catastrophe, and not just the human, but also of all the animals,

which is why all the animals are then spared by, you know, by these were dead. redemption processes, which is why the fact that humans are not redeemed by substituting a lamb is already saying, you've connected dots that aren't meant to be connected in this story. And when something removes the threat of danger, it's inaccurate to think substitution is the only way to conceptualize that aspect. You give this money or you do this ritual, and that is a substitution for this averse effect. Like, no, just because you're removing that threat, It doesn't mean that the lamb was not struck down in place of the human firstborn or the donkey firstborn or whoever, the cow firstborn. Does that make sense?

And so, like, the danger is being removed, but it may be a substitution. It's not like, it's just that it's not inherently in there. And that's what I think, like people I think run and this happens in the New Testament as we transition. they confuse saving uniqueness with substitution as if that's the only word to somehow convey the saving uniqueness of Jesus' death. And I, so, like, that's not the only way to do it. And same here. Like, substitution is not the only way to convey.

You do this whole thing, and these consequences don't have. You're protected from these negative things from happening. In any other context, other than Christians reading the story, you wouldn't use the word substitution to talk about how doing these things prevent these consequences. All right. So let's get to the New Testament and there's so much ground here to cover and we're, yeah, running out of time a bit. So let me just, um, uh, why don't we, let's just start in Romans 3. How's that? It's a good. Let's just start. That's like the biggest subsection of that chapter. It's going to only be that. Well, because I mean, well,

this one's familiar or what you want to yeah well because if for time's sake you wanted to get to the like exile restoration that sort of that sort of aspect and I think this one this one won't lend to that that's true that discussion go to Galatians 3 yeah let's go to uh all right yeah Galatian 3 and um so and I'll try to read just so people don't um just so we can have the text in our minds. Let me get the Galatians 3. So Paul says and the hard thing about this one is Galatians 3 10 to 14 is one of the most difficult disputed passages in Paul. People always say that about every passage in Paul, but I did my dissertation on this passage. I had to summarize the 18 different views and show why all of them are wrong and come up with something different. But

verse 13 so I'll let's say I would go back and encourage people to read start in verse 10 but for sake of time just verse 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentile so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith

now if I can summarize an argument you made throughout the book. I even noted every time you mentioned it, which is you can see on the page here. Oh, nice. Where I have every time you go to exile, Excel.

Can you send that to me? I don't even know all the time. But basically, if I remember, I mean, I can go back and read one, but that, well, you already mentioned it, that, you know, that's OT sacrifices only took care of certain kinds of, you know, sacramono. or, you know, ceremonial impurity.

It didn't deal with grave sins that had to do with idolatry, murder, sexual morality. God dealt with those through death and or exile. And exile is kind of conceived as almost like a sort of corporate death. When the New Testament comes on the scene, you know, between the Testaments, the Jews considered themselves a still under the curse of exile, which was the culmination of punishments for sins against the covenant the God established with them. So when it says Christ became a curse for us, he is taking on himself the curses of the covenant, which were punishment for sin. And since it's for us, he is taking those on and we are not.

So there is a kind of substitute there from an exile restoration framework is how I've always understood. That last part that they are not is where I have issue. Yeah. Okay. Yes. You do. And Andrew has. Yeah, that's it, right?

Well, okay, I unpack that. So it's that instead of, how do you, yeah, how do you understand Christ becoming a curse for us? So it's all solidarity. So it's not, like, what did I just flag on? The last part of what you said is, like, that we are not or something. But I don't see anything in the New Testament, let alone Old Testament of the we are not. This is a condition where Israel is already in. And by looking at the curses of the covenant and how they and the blessings

and how they relate to the initial state of affairs on Genesis 1 and 2, the blessings have of things, and then the curses in Genesis 3. And I outline this in an article that's now you can download on my academia EDU page on Ephesians 2. So like dead near trespasses and sins, et cetera, and the covenant. So like if you want a bit, anyone, you can download that article on Ephesians 2. But we're already in them. Like Israel, it's not like the curses are.

They're not at that domino effect. They're not at that like, hey, watch out. You might tip the first, you know, aspect of the covenant curses and the covenant discipline in Levitica 17, but Jesus did it. And now you don't have to experience it. That would be substitutionary. But they're already in it. The dominoes have already fallen. That's the state of affairs of these in.

So it's an identification with those covenant curses, which is why I use the phrase, solidarity atonement. So what I think is wrong in those readings is on the substitutionary element of it. And I use curse because I like Galatians that uses curse. And this is why quotes from Deuteronomy, those sections of the curse. And it's, you know, I think there's other there's other reasons, but it's like Paul chooses a very easy way to say, look, he literally embodies the curses of the covenant. Curse is the one who's saying. on a tree. And that it's an identification of the state of affairs that Israel is in historically. And once again, I'll punt to this guy for a second, just to show that he, this is, this is what

this is, this is kind of his thing. Like, it's understanding Jesus' relation to the law in relation to the rest, the restoration, the promise restoration, which means they are currently in the covenant curses. And the reason I'm going to him is because, hey, it's not me, but he's also relying on my argument. So he quotes from me quite extensively here and agrees that it's not substitutionary. We agrees with that aspect of it. So Paul Sloan. And the reason, I'm going to also read from Gathor Cole, but enduring the content of the

covenant curses, right? This is something that the, quote, the people remain under the punitive discipline. This figure, he's combining some things so going to be Jesus, endures the content of the curses of the covenant, endures the weight of Israel's guilt. And then says, so in predicting, page 193, yeah, so in predicting that he will be handed over to the nations to be put to death, Jesus is identifying with Israel's current plight, taking onto himself the yoke they currently experience, currently experience. So it's not that we don't have to, this is what they're in.

This is also, by the way, he's interpreting Isaiah 53. And that's the same, like they're already in, in that state of affairs. he's going to taking it on to himself to affect the restoration he has heralded. In doing so, Jesus is entering into, quote, cursed solidarity with his people, as Rallara Abley puts it. Entering into the covenant curse plight, Israel is italics, his already experiencing. And there's a few more times where Sloan outlines this out and notes that me, he clarifies, that this is not substitutionary, dying instead of his disciples, who must still bear their crosses, but a death ahead of and in solidarity with Israel's plight. So my contention is that Jesus'

identification, it's at all participation solidarity. So to quote myself in Lamb of the Free, I think, I don't know, I just searched covenant death and maybe I say this earlier, but on page 165. I deal specifically with the Galatians 3, but I'm right now trying to show the whole framework, like even outside of that section I deal with on Galatians 3.13. But just to get to this idea that bearing the consequences of moral impurity, this is related to that prophetic restoration. So when they critique sacrifices, again, what are they hoping for? I grouped this in a few different ways in the book, but they're looking for a new covenant, but a washing of the people. It's a moral purification. And Jesus comes to bring this is what John says he's doing.

He's going to wash, baptize, spirit with fire. And it's not, I think, what gives us a clue of how this works is Jesus' relationship to the ritual impurities that he's healing. He has contact with them. And it's by virtue of his life, of just who he is, that is touching of that purifies. Now, can he do this with grave moral impurity? That's, I think, the claim of the Gospels. He, he, I actually have an article that just got accepted into J.B. B.L on Luke that'll be developing like a couple pages in the book, like way more, yes, an

article on Luke, that it's Jesus identification, this cup, the cup of the covenant curses. It's by entering into, by touching them, by having contact with death, quah, death, death as covenant death as covenant curses. It's just like that heals ritual impurity. Well, it heals moral impurity because he's, he's victorious and conquers death. So, um, what I, what I say on page 165 is, um, this will be, this will be celebrated, like this victory over, uh, death. This will be celebrated and memorialized through a ritual intimating a Thanksgiving well-being offering, which is the Lord's Supper, as I discussed below. But it is not Jesus death as a sacrifice that brings all this purification about. It is Jesus death qua death as contact with death itself,

qua covenant death as a temple's destruction in Nuche as the ultimate consequence of the forces of death that exhausts the power of death, terminates it, and ultimately overcomes it by not being held down by it. So what, now I'm not reading anymore, but so it's that, it's that solidarity, the participation, the enduring of the things that Israel and the world is already in. He's not doing anything that is prevent. venting a future state of affairs, he's not taking on a state of affairs that spares anyone or anything else, right? The temple is still destroyed. Those who don't believe and are trying to save and they don't fleet of the mountains, subject to the Roman version of Nebuchadnezzar,

right? And then disciples, while they're spared. Well, not quite. They're actually the ones most explicitly said, you will be baptized with my baptism, drink the same cup. bear your crosses. Jesus is expecting co-crucrucifixion from anyone. So whatever his death is doing, it is not exchanging even his disciples from the same fate. He's not taking, it doesn't represent something that the disciples don't have to themselves endure. And I think in Jesus' mind, at that point, especially given as like, you don't know that there they are, I think he's actually hoping for a bit of co-crucrucrucifixion going on in that moment, not not. not just later.

And the fact that it happens still after the resurrection, and that becomes the way to talk about Christian life. Paul says fellowship with his sufferings, being conformed to the likeness of his death so that we might know the power of his resurrection, co-buried, co-crucified. That tells us even more strongly that there's a memory to put on my historian hat of the historical Jesus

really thinking that his fate of crucifixion is not unique to him, that it is the, it characterizes where this way, this way the Exodus leads. And I think going back to my article that's published on Daniel 7, it's because he saw himself as embodying the script of the son of man. It gets trampled by the beast that represents every one else, the representation isn't substitution. It's so everyone's called to do the same thing, which is why I say, dies ahead as like a pioneer, not instead, because we're still supposed to be following that. And the fact that that is still the emphasis after the resurrection and ascension, I think locks that in that they did not conceptualize across the early Christians as the thing

followers of Jesus avoid. It does not mark or substitute for even the whatever consequences of facing the divine tribunal for our sins. Every passage in the New Testament about judgment doesn't say anything that you could even accidentally mistake for Jesus saves us from God's retributive justice for our sins. It's always God judge you according to what you do every time. Matthew 16, I got a bit of a list here. Let's just fire them off. Matthew 16, 27, Romans 14, 10 to 12, 1st Corinthians 3, 12 to 15, 2nd Corinthians 510, Ephesians 68, Colossians 3 24 to 25, 1st Peter 1, 17, 1st Peter 1, 4, 5, Revelation 2, 23, Revelation 20, 12 to 13, Revelation 22, 12. So, Jesus is not saving us from

personal accountability before the divine tribunal. His crucifixion is not replaced. placing any punitive, corrective discipline that we all face and we stand in judgment before the Lord, which is distinct then from whatever it means to talk about Jesus saving us from the wrathicum in First Thessalonians or Romans 5. Whatever that mean, whatever that wrath means is irrelevant to the point right now, which is that the cross is quite obviously not the thing that replaces God's holding of us accountable anyone for their own individual sins in any judgment text. It's only theological frameworks that say, well, how can that be I was taught? Otherwise, it's just like, I don't know, maybe I'm still too much of an evangelical for my own good, but like these are what the judgment texts say. None of them link the cross to substituting for that for that stuff so the cross is not the substitute for our misdeeds

that must face God's punitive correction it's it's instead the source the shape the character of God's fully embodied human image which is why as creatures made in God's image we are called to conformity with the image of Christ which is then more specified to conformity to the likeness of is death. And so my beef of substitution is that it's just not in, it's not in the text. And that when Jesus isn't, when they're talking about, when the, when the, the, the episode of witnesses are talking about Jesus enduring the curses of the covenant or whatever, it's just that. He's enduring that which the people are already experiencing and humanity at large is already experiencing. It's a coming down into the conditions of covenant death in order to rescue us

out of it. And then that setting the paradigm in shape for anyone who comes after him. So I know I've been talking for a bit, but I want to wrap this up by quoting from Gathical, like I said, I would because this is really, again, one of those reviews is just like, I don't buy what Gathorkel saying, well, all right, Michael Scott, you can't just declare disagreement, you know, Like, you got to declaring bankruptcy. You've got to actually argue it. You can't, you can't, you can't do. Like, what the heck?

What are we doing here? Exactly. Oh, I disagree with God. Okay, fine. But like, let's see, like, make the argument. But here is, this is important. I'm going to read a bit from Gathorkel here. Because Gathorkel, in defending substitution, ironically, this was the book that I read during

the master's degree. What was this published? I don't know if I read it right when it came out, but that made me go, oh, I used to have this like exile kind of exile restoration form of PSA or thinking it was PSA. This is the book that was in 2015. So actually, no, so I did. It was just after I graduated that with my master's. This is the book that made me go, oh, I don't see some, then I don't, like, no.

If PSA fails on the substitutionary framework. not the penal, properly understood as covenant curse. There's some aspects of PSA that's like they're floating so high, far away from the text where they invent new definitions of death that don't occur in the scriptures, you know, as covenant death. But so I'm fine with the penal aspect properly understood as covenant curse. It's a substitutionary aspect that I think falters. So Gathricle, again, you can't just disagree.

I mean, you could, but. when you're writing a review or do it, like, you've got to show the disagreement, argue why this doesn't happen. Um, it doesn't work or whatever. So Gathical says, I'm defining substitutionary tommen for the present purposes as Christ's death in our place instead of us. The instead of us clarifies the point that in our place does not in substitution at least mean in our place with us.

Jesus was, for example, baptized in our place with us. That is, the baptism was not a substitution. So he's like, there's, when Jesus identifies with our place, it's with us, right? So he's distinguishing these. In a substitutionary theory of the death of Jesus, he did something, underwent something, so that we did not, and would never have to do. This definition can be generally agreed upon. Not anymore, thanks to my book, apparently.

Although there is considerable debate about the validity of substitution as an aspect of the atonement in scripture, there is not. so much debate about what substitution is. At least, again, do you use to, like, substitution means person X does something instead of someone else. So he says, again, substitution is on page 18 now. Substitution is logically distinguishable from related concepts such as penalty, representation, expiation, and propitiation. This is not to say that they cannot all belong together in a full orb understanding of the atonement. But it is to say that each must arrive. out of ex-a-Jesus and can, indeed should, be the subject of investigation in its own right.

These are logically distinct rather than a priori inseparable. Sorry, I've got to keep going. One can have, this is where my view would fit in. One can have punishment or penalty without substitution. This is on page 19 going on to 20. We will see an example later of a view according to which Jesus identifies with us in our condemnation. In this view of the atonement, we have Christ sharing. in the judgment of God, but this is not in our place in the sense that he bears it and we do not.

Rather, on this view, he would bear it with us rather than instead of us and accomplish atonement that way. Because he identifies with us so completely, not just in the incarnation, but also in sharing the penalty of sin and death, he thereby represents us to God. Representation itself is not the same as substitution, however. Substitution entails a concept of replacement, X taking the place of Y and thereby ousting Y. The place of Y, the place that Y previously occupied is now filled by X. In representation, X is in one sense occupies a position of Y. There are differences, however, in representation, X does not thereby oust Y, but rather embodies Y. That's it. And then when he laid it the, the, the, um,

when he says, we'll do this view later, I think he's talking about more to Hooker's view on page 40 and 41, where it's actually now to get us back on target. I'm pretty sure this is her understanding of Galatians. If not, then maybe 2nd Corinthians 5, which is similar, became sin, et cetera, which I deal with in the book. The reason I'm making this point is that even Gathor Cole, who's defending a form of substitution and I deal with the passages he thinks are a substitution, even he recognizes that, that what I'm, this reading, Jesus has embodying covenant death and all that as covenant

death, the punitive, cursed consequences of sin, that's not a substitution, though. So that this exile restoration view is not a PSA view. By definition, it's not a substitutionary view because he's not doing anything that we, or that the people, that we, whoever, is not already experiencing themselves. He's not sparing. it's not a replacement. So Hooker says, the process is a paradoxical one. Christ empties himself and humbles himself in identifying himself with mankind and becoming what men are.

They, in turn, must identify themselves with his shame and death if they are to become what he is in his glorious resurrection life. Gather Cole's comment, this is a sharing of experience, not a substitution. Goes on to quote her a bit more about participation. Christ is identified with us in order that in him we might share him what he is. That's Morgan Hooker. Gapagal's comment, hence, despite some superficial similarities, substitution, and interchange are quite different. And that's what people reading my book need to, A, understand this distinction and can't

just declare disagreement. You have to argue why they are not actually, in fact, conceptually distinct and logically distinct, that these are actually all mutable, interchangeable, uh, concepts. I don't think that'll ever hold. I don't think anyone could do it. I don't think that's actually possible, um, to, to come up with, uh, a view of substitution that basically loses meaning. I mean, the reason is you can, is it'll lose meaning. It's too, it's too capacious to mean anything at that point. Um, if it, if it can just collapse into, any notion of representation or whatever, but we, it's just clear, as Gatical says, it's clear that when we're talking about sharing a plight

and experience enduring the same things, it can't be vicarious. It can't be vicarious if the people benefiting from it are also experiencing the same thing. That's not a vicarious experience. That's a participation, that's solidarity. So when it comes to becoming a curse for us, Yeah, the four is not in exchange instead, it's for its benefit. And that's what I show on like the nitty gritty grammar that is that you can't just

take the preposition who pair and think this means substitution anytime it's mentioned. So I'll have a list of time for this or even anti, the preposition anti. There's so many instances where you can't interpret it as instead of or as substitution because it just wouldn't make sense. and these are in like non-soterological text. So it just helps us see that like, oh, you're kind of overcooking the exorcises here if you're thinking that the for us means replacement because it does the word who pair doesn't, it just means a benefit.

So it benefits because in God's vindication, again, especially Paul, it's the resurrection that matters. But in that vindication, then we see. the covenant curses, it's Christ coming in and issuing that moral purification with touching into the consequences of brave moral impurity, these sins, and experiencing it so that he might rescue us coming in. I use an analogy of quicksand. He's rescuing, but he's getting into the quicksand with us and yanking us out. So that's a benefit, but it's not substitution because the curses are already upon us. And then Paul says, actually, that's with all

world. Like, we're already, excuse me, under, living under, the Gentiles are already in covenant curse. That's what, and that's, Israel's experience is just being just like the nations in their experience. So, there's, as I said, with the judgment thing, like our judgment seat before God. Like, there's just the way the cross functions in the Apostolic Witness, it is never conceptualized as taking the punishment instead of anyone else, nor on the individual level of what we can expect to face before God's throne or Christ's throne, depending on the passage we're looking at, but divine judgment. So for all those reasons, I'm like, this just can't be conceptualized as a substitution. It fails on a definition level. What we have is

participation, solidarity, identity. That was a long monologue. And you're, I have several thoughts. I'm not sure if I will be able to get to them all. Let me just, with regard to God. Well, thanks for letting me go with that. Because that's, I mean, I'm going to write it up, like I said, more. I thought what I wrote was in the book was sufficient to make that point.

But like, it really, a lot of the. I think a lot of the potential disagreement would be to say something that what I'm arguing for in Chapter 5 is itself logically implies some sort of PSA. And no, because it's not, it's not substitutionary. And for the audience, I mean, my goal here is so that you can hear Andrew unpack his ideas so that you can go and interact with them. That's the goal. And I was going to say.

I'm going to say something else. Anyway, let me give a few bullet-pointed responses. First of all, Gathorkel does, at the beginning of this book, he does talk about representation, substitution, being logically incompatible ideas. You have to have one or the other. You can't have both. No, in a passage.

In a passage. In a passage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are all passage-specific. So in theory, I would be like, yeah, that's why I go through each. passage. In theory, you can have one author using a substitutionary framework and you can have or even the same, but in a different part using a participant. But at a time, you can't collapse them in one exegesis. It's like either the person's talking about identification and

shared experience or they would be talking about replacement. What my point is, is let's go through them. And again, you can't do it. I didn't do literally every single one, but just apply the same reasoning methodological process that I do to the ones I do showcase this case studies and say, let's see if replacement is the underlying concept here. Is it replacement instead of, or is it union, you know, all those other things? And that's why I've come on the other side of it. It's not that like you can't have both it's one you can't have both in the same scent like in the same claim either something for placing or it's not and uh so that's why i then go with the ones that gather called says like hey here's where you get replacement um because you know i still think he i still

don't think you have replacement in those passages i'm glad you said that because yeah he gives at the end of the book he does come back and say substitution or he says he yeah he says we need to get away from the unhelpful either or that forces us to choose between representation and substitution and then he cites as a whole as a whole as you're talking about as a whole as a whole as you're thinking about the saving significance of jesus death some scholars see substitutionary and participatory dimensions of paul's thought as cohesive or running in parallel um so you can't have different specific passages hidden different aspects so but yeah yeah yep you could into which is why it's like all right well, is this one substitutionary?

Is this substitutionary? And like, so the curse, no, that's identification. Becoming sin. Like, as I explained in those passages, we're just getting summary statements of what is worked out narratively in the Gospels. That Jesus is enduring covenant curses with us. So I wish you would have said with us, though, instead of, I wish he didn't say he was cursed with us, but for us. And that could mean for the benefit. But we're already,

well, he's already saying, you're already dead. It's just as it's is. You're already under the, like anywhere you, like, so if, Roman, uh, Romans 5 or, or, or if you're into, you're already in it. There's no, he's born under the law in a time of, of coming at curse. He does the old timeline later from Abraham to law, et cetera, et cetera. Andrew, you got, you got to give me time to unpack. You spent 25 minutes and I've, keep cutting me off. So if, yeah, my bad, man. No, that's right. I just, I, so, um, you said, you know, that Jesus died ahead of us as the, as our

curse solidarity. But if Israel's been under the curse since 586, I mean, Jesus is kind of Johnny come lately, isn't he? He's not, he's not a forerunner. He's, he's just one, yet another human being that died is the only thing that made his death unique is the resurrection, but there's nothing within his death itself that is unique to Jesus, that the death of everybody else who died as a result of the covenant curse in the literal exile or whatever, there's nothing really unique in Jesus' death

in your conception other than he passed through on the other side. Would that be? The uniqueness, I say a few different times. Let me find the... You do talk about the uniqueness, yeah. I just when you were just, when you were just, I have a few different times. But again, it's passage-specific. So for, yeah, his death is unique, but it has more to do with who he is. The one who's embodying, like, just like touching ritual coming in contact with ritual impurity, it has the cleansing effect that it has because of who he is.

And so I think it's unique because it generates a new reality. But it's not vicarious because he's not enduring or experiencing something in any passage that I've seen, like where it says he's experiencing something that we don't or aren't already in. So that like that that's why I don't like I just got to take the uniqueness isn't to be found in the experience of and this is why a law of the language in the gospel like the language you hand it over and that's why I said to look at my Ephesians 2 article and then now the the one on Luke that's going to come out all the things that are supposed to attend the temple's destruction. and or that are like key terms in the covenant curses sections in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, which Paul quotes from it, hang on the street. They're all, these are not realities that we're not already experienced. So they ahead of, to get to your head of, like, that maybe that's the problem of of, of tweeting

and then incorporating into your book because it sounds like instead of or whatever. And I was mainly when I was writing that, actually thinking of Heavro is the language of Pioneer, right, forerunner, he's gone, gone ahead of us. But I think he confronted the beasts. Like, yeah, he's not really late to the curses, but he is the first tip of the spear, as it were, who's been confronting the beast in a way that has led to the expected end, which is enthronement and ascension. And that's like, now we're raised up and together with him. You know, it's like that part is first and is, and is part of the uniqueness. But the other uniqueness is he's generating the reality, the conditions in which we can be made new. So like the language of creation, that is unique or new creations or being made new or covenant making.

But it's, you don't call your mother, you know, your substitutionary birther just because she did something for you that you couldn't do. actually, like, I'm just trying to expose, like, we run to the language of substitution to try to capture the uniqueness. And I just think it's, it's never, it's never accurate to what the, any given passage is trying to convey about Jesus's death. And they're usually not trying to talk about it in its unique. Like, that's, it's not, they're usually, I can't think of a time where the topic itself is, how is this unique? It's mainly, this is paradigmatic. Like, a lot of the talk about Jesus' death is paradigmatic for discipleship.

A lot of it's used in a discipleship framework. So not even, like, so it's sometimes hard to pin down how exactly this or that author would talk about the uniqueness. But that's why I try a few different points to do it in the book, depending on the passage that I'm looking at, and to name in those passages, okay, here's the uniqueness aspect of it. But yeah, I should probably stop and see where you're at, what you're feeling with that. I think, so for the audience, hasn't read the book yet. I mean, you go through most of the, what about this?

What about that passage? So Andrew is, it's not like you're going to whip out a verse and like, aha, you know, he hasn't dealt with this. He's dealt with it. You may disagree with his exegesis, but you have thought through all these. My personal opinion, and I'm sorry, we're really running out of time. You know, some of your treatments I thought were more compelling than others where you showed that substitution.

isn't clearly at play here once you play close attention to the language. You would say it's not at play, but even if you don't fully agree, I think you at least showed that it's not as clear in some passage than others. There are others, though,

like, I mean, two big ones that stand out for me, which I think parallels the language of for us in Galatians 313 is, well, I guess the two that Gathorcoe focuses on 1st Corinthians 15, 3, where Christ died, for our sins. And he even points out that that language of dying for sins, you see it all over the Old

Testament where people die for their own sins as a means of punishment. And here you have the same language. Only here it's not somebody dying for their sins because of their sins, but they are dying for the sins of others. So that seems to go beyond simply participation or curse solidarity, but one person doing something on behalf of the other person. Or Romans 5, I think you even admit in your book that Romans 5, I forgot what you say. You say, like in and of itself, this could be taken to, or here's what you say. You say, by itself, Romans 5, 6 to 8, this is page 281, that by itself,

Romans 5, 6 to 8 has room for a substitutionary view of Jesus' death. But then you go on to say several times that you think that passage is ambiguous. I don't think it's too ambiguous. But the larger context of Romans chapter 5 to 8 is, you know, uses a lot of participatory language. And so, therefore, 5, 6 to 8 can't be substitution because the whole context is participation. But I just, I mean, look, man, I'm again, just to emphasize again, I don't have a, I don't need this passage to say pedal substitution theological. I don't need that. But it just, I don't know, man. It just seems like Christ dying for unrighteous people, saving us from the wrath of God while we were enemies.

We were reconciled through his death. That just seems to be one, the death of Christ being a very unique event averting God's wrath on behalf of us. So, yeah, there's, and there's a few others that. But that wrath, that's why I said when I said before about the judgment. judgment, whatever that, it means it's not, it's not taking the place of whatever sort of punitive discipline at the judgment seat. That's not, that's not what's going on. But to be clear, like, to be clear, when I say that ambiguous, what I'm saying is it's not, you don't have enough info in Romans 5 to distinguish between the type of benefit being offered. All we,

all we know is later on that page is that Jesus dies for the benefit of his enemy. that's all the grammar will get you. It will not get you substitution. Hupéer doesn't carry that much weight. We're justified by his blood? I mean, I mean, I have a, hold on. Or, yeah, if you want to go there, we can go back to that. But my point is that all you know is that it's for our benefit.

And he's dying for his enemies, and it's for the benefit of those people. you for the many for the for the for the sinners whatever and this is why then paul says it's for our benefit because if jesus death was dying to sin in roman six well he first says we've died to sin and by being co-crucrucified buried with christ so it's only like that's when he explains the benefit so what i mean in romans five is you don't you don't yet have enough information to to to for sure say this is a substitutionary benefit or it's a representative benefit or whatever. All you know is that it's a benefit.

And what Paul's distinguishing in Romans 5 is these classical examples of classical gives, they are substitutions. The beneficiary does not experience death, that fate. But what Paul is making the distinction is it's not just for a good person, it's for the wrong sort of people he would have expected. But then he goes on to specify that what the benefit is, is made possible by union, by a co-crucifixion co-barial. And then again, linking it to the resurrection.

So this Hu-Pair language is actually used with respect to the resurrection. Jesus died and was raised for us, for the many, Hu-Pair. And no one says Jesus was resurrected so you aren't, so you don't have to be. The benefit, and they go in a tandem. We can't separate these out. that one part was substitutionary, the other part is shared. So what I mean in Romans 5, how it being ambiguous is, I mean, for the purposes of saying this is substitutionary or not, you can't just go, well, look, there's these classical

examples of substitutionary deaths. That's what Paul means. I'm like, maybe, like, it could, like, by itself, it depends how we let him, let him explain to us what that benefit is. If the benefit is, Jesus endured things that we're not enduring ourselves as just born in Adam, then sure, then that's, then that's what he's doing. But he doesn't say, Paul doesn't say that the death that delivers from the wrath is because Jesus' death is that wrath. He doesn't say that either. And again, just to keep us clear, we can't just load wrath into, oh, the

consequences of my sin. I face God. That's the wrath of God. I see this verse saying, Jesus stays me from the wrath. Some translations throw of God in there, but it's not actually in there in Romans 5 in the Greek, but it's just wrath. But either way, you're running too quickly to equate this with God's wrathful response to our individual sins before the divine judgment seat. That's why I said that earlier. I would say, but the three times, real quick, the three times Paul uses wrath earlier, I think it's three in Romans, 118, 35, maybe even somewhere in chapter two, it is God's wrath for human transgressions. I mean, that's clearly what Romans 118 is revealed against all ungodly. You don't want to talk about my dissertation, man.

That, that, that, I don't think, I think Romans 118 and 32 is the speech of the person Paul addresses in chapter two, verse one. And I deal with that passage in my dissertation as well, but from a different angle of Romans 5. Is that a Campbell? You like a Campbell approach to Romans 1? yeah yeah i mean in short well like a lot of my dissertation is also uh critiquing and strengthening uh camels conclusions but critiquing some of them but uh that's why i'm trying to put us like whatever it is we whatever you want the wrath to be it is not g the cross is not conceptualized there's not two crosses that's like you can't have a cross that we join jesus on and a cross that is jesus um experiencing something that we're spared uh

Because, A, I don't see a verse that ever distinguishes two crosses. That is a, it's an implication forced upon certain theological frameworks where you need to distinguish two types of crosses. But my point for Romans 5 is that Jesus, I mean, Paul does not identify Jesus' death with the wrath. Isn't say Jesus experienced the wrath and that's why you're spared. The benefit is whatever wrath means. But I'm bracketing that out of defining it. carefully, one, because of my dissertation, two, because whatever it means, it doesn't mean what I think a lot of people think it means.

When you say Jesus, what is that? It's the wrath of God for my sins. I'm no longer, I'm freed from God's wrath on my sins. And I'm saying, no, no, a bunch of times over. This is what, this is very clear. And Paul's and others, like I said, that's why I listed out all those verses, judge our judgment according to works. It's not the same thing as salvation according to works. That's a big distinction I'm making my dissertation. It doesn't come up here in the Lamb of the Free. But what I want

listeners, people to know that whatever you want wrath to be, it is not what I think most people think it means in the pews, which is, it is God's accountability and response to my sins. That is not what the cross is. It's not like I would have been on there for my sins in that sort of way. he spares me from it. Paul does not make that equation with Jesus' death and God's wrath. It's always love. And Paul and John, it's always a demonstration of God's love. Wrath is never mentioned in association with the cross. So whatever that wrath is, it is definitely not what Paul is talking about in 1st Corinthians 3 and elsewhere about facing the divine tribunal and being held accountable for our deeds. But I want to distinguish

salvation according to works and judgment according to works because I think the New Testament distinguishes those things. But so Jesus' death is not replacing our judgment according to works. And that's what I think a lot of people have in mind when they hear saves us from the wrath to come or whatever. And so I'm like that's where that's the function of penal substitutionary atonement. He did this. These are the consequences of my sin. He substituted for it. Therefore, you have a cross that you don't join Jesus on, but because it's an escapable in the New Testament that there is a cross that we join Jesus on, you've got to have two. You got to have two things. And I don't ever see them spliced in the New Testament.

Well, I've taken you eight minutes over the lot of time. I have, for people listening on, if they're like, man, this is a lot. I think both Andrew and I agree that we're, we're just getting warmed up like there we we've opened up all these cans and there's so many lengthy conversations yeah and that's why i decided oh man i need to write more on this and stuff i don't i just want to thank you andrew for your book for for um even if somebody like you know i i there's i learned a ton there's there's things i find more convincing others others i'm not sure others i'm like i just i don't i'm not convinced by your exegesis um as always i'm incredibly thankful for any book that just absolutely stirs my thinking, challenges my thoughts,

causes me to go back to scripture and say, well, have I been reading this through a certain lens? So very thankful for that. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I know you're busy man, so I appreciate you taking their time. Oh, aren't we all? That's no real excuse. It's just, yeah. No, I appreciate you let me say all the things. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great to be in this seeing you again and all that like it's been it's been a while and i'm really grateful that you took it um to like seriously and gave it a good uh read and i yeah it's it's definitely um an honor to have you as uh former prof man to you know right like all that just being being here now

so um thank you appreciate it We're going to be.