Truth Unites - A Knockout Blow to Penal Substitution? Engaging John Mark Comer on the Atonement

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

In this video, Gavin Ortlund responds to recent comments by John Mark Comer suggesting that a new book may be the “final knockout blow” to penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). Gavin offers five reasons why PSA remains a vital part of Christian theology.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/MY ACADEMIC WORK:https://truthunites.org/mypublications/PODCAST: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/truth-unitesDISCORD SERVER ON PROTESTANTISMStriving Side By Side: https://discord.gg/MdTt6d5PVsCHECK OUT SOME BOOKS:https://www.amazon.com/Makes-Sense-World-That-Doesnt/dp/1540964094/truthunites-20https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Retrieval-Evangelicals-Need-Future/dp/1433565269/truthunites-20https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Right-Hills-Die-Theological/dp/1433567423/truthunites-20https://www.amazon.com/Retrieving-Augustines-Doctrine-Creation-Controversy/dp/0830853243/truthunites-20

Recently, John Mark Comer put out a comment on Instagram about a book that he was reading about the atonement, and he said this book seems to be the final biblical slash exegetical knockout blow to PSA. The letters PSA stand for penal substitutionary atonement. This has to do with how Jesus' death on the cross reconciles us to God, since it's a big term, let's break it down. Penal means involving a legal penalty or punishment substitutionary means Jesus died for us or in our our place. We're going to talk about different shades of meaning with that. And then atonement, you can just think of at one meant. It means how we are reconciled or restored to God. So in a nutshell, PSA is the idea that Jesus bore the penalty of our sins when he died on the cross. Lots of

Christians just assume, you know, that are not aware how controversial this is. This is very controversial. And part of the challenge is that there are indeed many crude and simplistic expressions of penal substitution, which do need to be opposed. For example, many people do split the Trinity in articulating the atonement, particularly in penal categories, as though on the cross, God the Father and God the Son are somehow working at cross purposes. That's a real danger and a problem we need to oppose. And so sometimes what you will see today is this tendency to focus on other aspects of Jesus' death, like demonstrating God's love, defeating demonic powers, providing an example for us, all of which are biblical themes. By the way, there's about 12 or so,

different 12 to 15, different atonement motifs depending upon how you divide them up. I have a longer video talking about all of this, trying to categorize the options and chart out a way forward, if that's of interest to you. But what is happening is PSA, which is kind of a standard account, standard understanding of it, especially in like evangelical contexts, is often rejected. But I believe that many of the criticisms of penal substitution derive their force by targeting caricatures or the worst expressions of this doctrine. They are not aware of the more nuanced academic defenses of penal substitution. And they often rely on false dichotomy, setting the legal aspect of our salvation at odds with other aspects of our salvation. A theme of this video

and my earlier, longer video, is trying to get a comprehensive and holistic vision, and PSA has an important part in that. It's at the heart of it all. So I want to give in this video comments in defense of penal substitution. I don't have, by the way, a ton of familiarity with John Mark Comer. I keep hearing about him, and I know he's very popular and influential right now. I really am not commenting on him more broadly. I don't know his ministry very well. The few things I have seen I've appreciated. I would love to get to know him. I know what it's like when you say something, and then the internet blows up with it, and I don't mean this to be reactive in a way that reflects bad form. But I do just want to reflect on this because people are thinking about this topic.

So it won't really be about him. We're just thinking about this topic. I want to give four observations. I want to argue that penal substitutionary atonement is biblical, ancient, integrative. That'll be the interesting one, number three, and Trinitarian. First, penal substitution is biblical. As you look through biblical passages that are dealing with the atonement, you find this repeated theme that Jesus doesn't just suffer on the cross in some general sense. He suffers for our sins

or with reference to our sins in some sense. There's a lot of diversity in the language and imagery for this, as we'll talk about in point three. Perhaps the earliest and most common summary of the gospel is simply to say, Christ died for our sins, as you see in 1st Corinthians, 15, 3, for example. But this is ambiguous in itself. We can simply ask, what does the preposition for mean? And what we want to do here is let scripture interpret scripture, and especially draw from the Old Testament background, which is so helpful for shedding light on some of these briefer, more compact New Testament passages. So we can go to Isaiah 53, for example, where we find the same preposition, Christ was pierced for our transgressions, crushed

for our iniquities. But then these phrases are qualified with the words that I've underlined here on screen. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. The word chastisement is translated in the NASB as punishment. Sometimes that Hebrew word is translated as discipline or correction. And we can note the further qualifying phrase at the end of verse 6, the Lord laid on him are iniquity. So we have this idea that in some way the chastisement for our sin, or stating it differently, our iniquity itself is laid upon this suffering servant of Isaiah 53 that we know today to be Jesus. As you look to the New Testament, we find this similar kind of language. Christ bore our sins in his body, 1. Peter 2.24. God made Christ to be sin.

2. Corinthians 521. Christ became a curse for us, Galatians 3. And this sin bearing is substitutionary in its character that is absolutely unavoidable. It is the righteous for the unrighteous, a substitution. 1st Peter 318. And whatever else we need to say about the atonement, we're going to emphasize that it is a multifaceted achievement of Christ. We must say at least this much, that the substitutionary nature of Christ's death on the cross is with reference. to our sin and our guilt. It has a penal element to it. He is bearing a punishment or a curse, or sometimes sin itself is how it is worded. Perhaps the most important text in this regard

because of where it lies in the context of Paul's kind of systematic presentation of the gospel is Romans 325, with this word helasterone, which basically to summarize here, we shouldn't reduce that word just to expiation, meaning the removal of sin, it also does carry with it the idea of averting God's wrath, what we call propitiation. And that fits better both with Paul's context in the argument that's unfolding in Romans 1 through 3, as well as with the Old Testament background, especially from the Book of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16, for example. If you want to get a fuller treatment on that, Leon Morris gave this kind of classic treatment of that back in the day when there's big debate about this. I covered this also in my book Theological

Retrieval for Evangelicals, where I'm trying to argue that substitution is kind of the broadest category, but there's an undeniably penal element to the substitution that's very clearly there, very important, more on that in a moment. So I know that the book that Comer is referencing in his Instagram comment there talks a lot about Old Testament sacrifice, but I think that account has some problems. I would love to recommend this book by Bobby Jameson. I think he sheds a lot of light on the nature of sacrifice and atonement in the Bible, especially in the book of Hebrews. Suffice to say, we're going to emphasize in this video that there's a lot going on in the

atonement, but it's not less than penal and substitutionary. That's a core piece of it. Second of all, let me show that that is attested throughout church history. This is an ancient doctrine, especially when you have a broad, just the broad idea of penal substitution, as opposed to one specific understanding. Again, it can be put very simplistically. But I will say this. There is a tendency to see penal substitution as this recent arrival.

You will hear sometimes from Eastern Orthodox critics, sometimes from others, other circles, this idea that it really comes into the picture with Calvin and the other reformers. It's not represented in the early church. But it's not hard to find articulations of penal substitution in the early church, where, honestly, where you find commentary on Isaiah 53, you'll find this same language coming up, explicit language about Christ bearing the penalty of our sins. Like this quote from Eusebius, the early church historian, for example, if you want some like,

you know, frontline explicit examples of that, you can see this article by Brian Arnold at the Gospel Coalition. I think it gives a good rundown of some of those passages. What I want to try to do here to try to move the discussion forward a bit, because I see the this conversation playing out and I'm trying to look at all the different values on the different sides and see if I can say something that could be useful or productive, is that even among those in the early church where there is a more diversity and sort of a broader framework for understanding Christotone work, you still find the basic idea of penal substitution to be present. And my academic work on this has been in Irenaeus and Athanasius, two early Christians,

and then comparing them with Anselm, a medieval Christian, and trying to show how much harmony there is actually. We sometimes set things as contradictory that are actually just complementary with respect to the atonement. And so what some of these early Christians, like Ironaeus and Athanasius, are emphasizing, is the idea of recapitulation.

Christ reconstitutes humanity through his entire incarnate work, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. and my special interest in talking about this has been to try to focus on that broader narrative context, especially the transfiguration. That's an important moment in Christ's incarnate life. I'm trying to broaden out our thinking a little bit and help us see the big picture. Nonetheless, within that broader framework, Christ's death on the cross is spoken of in penal and substitutionary categories,

and that's an absolutely central element to Christ-saving work, even if it is in this broader context. Just to give an example or two, Athanasius treats death as itself penal. So for Athanasius, death is the penalty for sin and transgression. Of course, he gets this from Genesis 2 and the Lord's warning there in verse 17. So death is penal. Human death after the fall is a legal punishment from God. And so on the incarnation, Athanasius will speak of Christ's death as the paying of this debt that we owed to God. The debt is death. Christ's death is a sacrifice that pays that debt

that settles the account so we no longer owe the death. We'll leave this passage on the screen here and you can note the substitutionary language here with reference to Christ's death that I've underlined on behalf of all, in place of all. That's substitutionary language. And then this is combined with legal and financial imagery and language to interpret the nature of the substitution. And that's what I've emboldened here. There's a debt which needed to be paid. That's financial language. To settle man's account. This is financial terminology. And this suggests that Athanasius has a conception of Christ's crucifixion as constituting the satisfaction of our debt to God as sinful human beings. And in my work on this, I'm talking about that's the same

thing you find in Anselm. These figures that are often set at odds are actually not so different. But I would say this is broadly in the ballpark of a species of penal substitution, even if it's different than the kind of penal substitution you'll often hear today, because the emphasis is on the penalty of death and less specifically on the penalty of guilt. Nonetheless, it's penal and it's substitutionary, and you find a lot of language like this. I've located this a lot more in Athanasius' text against the Arians. Oh, boy, so many passages. I'll put up four of these on the screen, even though it might overwhelm your eyes to see all this text.

But the idea is Christ has taken on himself the judgment of the law that stood against us. That judgment is death, the penalty of death, and Christ died as a ransom or sacrifice such that we don't have to pay that penalty. He died for us. Similarly with Ironaeus, actually, amazingly, you always think of Ironaeus as one who emphasizes recapitulation, but then you look at his shorter catechetical works, and he gets to the same. to Isaiah 53, and you realize, oh, he's not seeing these things at odds in the way that we sometimes do. Just to be clear, I am not saying that Athanasius thinks the same way as a typical modern evangelical about this. My whole work in this has been to try to broaden our categories a bit,

but I do believe that penal substitution is a central ingredient, even in these church fathers, like an Ironaeus or Athanasius, in its basic core idea. And the important point here to understand is that there is a legal aspect to our salvation. Sin does involve penalty. For example, we relate to God as in many roles and in many capacities, but one of them is that he is our judge. For example, we'll give an account of our lives. There's a sort of legal dimension.

We are lawbreakers. That's not the only aspect of sin and the need for salvation, but that's one important one. There's over 500 references in Holy Scripture to God's wrath. That is a problem that needs a solution, and we have the solution for that in Christ's cross. And you see that in the early church. You see that all throughout church history in the basic idea. By the way, if you want a great introduction text to Athanasius on the Atonement,

check out Jeremy Treat's introduction. It has Athanasius' text and a few of his other works, pieces from them, and a great introduction as well. And then Jeremy has some great books on the Atonement himself, like this one. I'll put a link, or this one. crossway one is a shorter one. I'll put a link to both those in the video description as well. All right, now we need to get to the third point, which has been implicit here already, and that is, penal substitution is integrative. What I mean by that is, it is not mutually exclusive with other models of the atonement necessarily. The meaning of the atonement is multifaceted and diverse, and penal substitution is harmonious with other aspects of the atonement.

It can be integrated into a broader picture. To put it like this, The reconciliation of God with fallen sinful human beings requires the overcoming and solving of many distinct but related forces. Sin, guilt, death, demonic powers. So you have a complex problem, and therefore the solution is going to have to touch all aspects of the problem, and therefore it's not surprising that the atonement would be multi-pronged. But what I want to say here to summarize it as briefly as I can, and I've argued for this at greater length in my other video and in my book that I've referenced, is if you take penal substitution out of the equation, then the other aspects of the atonement struggle to explain why it had to be crucifixion, per se. Why did

atonement come through this specific mechanism? If Christ died only to show God's love or mainly, why not show God's love in some other way? If Christ died only to defeat, demonic powers or mainly, why do them in this way? And what I would propose is that these other aspects of the atonement, though they're very real and biblical, are more consequences of the atonement than the very heart of it or the logic of it or the mechanism of it. For example, in Colossians 2, a text that I love to preach, my first sermon here at Emmanuel was on this passage. What you can see here is that there's a disarming and triumphing over demons in purple here in verse 15. But this comes as the result of the canceling of the record of debt with its legal

demands in green in verse 14 there on the screen. They're both true and they have a logical relation from them. The purple comes as a consequence of the green. The legal problem is solved and this is why we have the verb disarmed there. No longer does Satan have his accusing power against us. the legal aspect of our salvation is absolutely central. And this is just very biblical. I think we do great injury to the gospel when we try to extract this from the broader picture. The interesting thing in our atonement theology is to try to get all of these different pieces together and understand their different logical relationships.

In my work, I've suggested that the broader category of substitution is a good way to sum up the whole of Christ's incarnate and atoning work. I like getting at this with this simple formula. You always think you can explain theology only when you can break it down so a child could understand, right? But the popular presentation of the gospel that Tim Keller and many others have used is a great way to get at it. Christ lived the life we should have lived. Christ died the death. We should have died.

The green part of this sentence is inclusive substitution or representation. This is represented by the words in Christ. and the purple part is a strict substitution or replacement, represented by the words for us or sometimes on our behalf. But both of these are substitutionary and they're organically connected. The green flows into the purple. The cross of Jesus Christ is the climactic moment in this broader activity of Christ as our federal head. And that is why you will find, even in the reformers,

like Luther and Calvin, reference to the death of Christ on the cross, is this climactic moment in a larger transaction or exchange that they call it. By the way, if you want to have a hard cut off and disconnect Christ's life and his death, rather than try to, what I'm trying to emphasize see it is all one piece, but then with a climactic emphasis on his death, it becomes difficult to know where you make the cutoff, right? I mean, is it when Christ is carrying the cross? Is it when the nails first pierce his feet or his hands? Is it when the darkness comes? You see, there's a broader narrative context here that we want to see the full picture. Fourth point is that penal substitution is Trinitarian. This is one of the most common charges against penal substitution, and rightly so,

insofar as this is expressed badly, which it is. I mean, part of my goal in this video is to defend penal substitution, but also to ward off the erroneous expressions of it. This is where we come up with the charge of divine child abuse. But I would say to push back against this charge, especially against the idea of penal substitution as such. I would say this overlooks three things. Number one, the unity of the father and the son, especially with respect to their will. So we want to maintain the simplicity of God. There are not different parts of God. Therefore, the father and the son, as well as the Spirit, share one divine will. Second of all, the charge of divine child abuse overlooks Christ's willingness and initiative to go to the cross and suffer. It also overlooks,

thirdly, the redemptive purpose of that suffering. Think of Christ's words in John 10, where he says, no one is making me do this. I lay down my life of my own accord. I have authority to do that, and I have authority to take it up again. The Bible even says that Christ endured the cross for the joy set before him. This is very different from child abuse. Child abuse is evil. The cross is good. We call it Good Friday for a reason

because the triune God has worked to affect our salvation. And we should rejoice in this. By the way, if I could just close by saying this, penal substitution is good news because it means that this aspect of our soul, there's much else that also needs to be done to save us. We need a resurrection.

body, for example. What Jesus has accomplished for us is a perfect salvation. Anything you need he has provided for. That's the pastoral way to conclude this. There's nothing in you that is sort of a remainder after Jesus' saving work has had its effect. And you think, oh, now what do I do about this problem? Jesus' saving work covers all the bases, everything you need. And one of those needs is the legal dimension. We do need forgiveness of sins. We do need the absolution of guilt. we do need the covering of shame and the cross of Christ addresses this need perfectly how else can we say it but the wondrous words it is finished our sin there is no condemnation because the legal think of Colossians too the legal demands that God has of us as our judge have been fully met

I'll close with this metaphor my favorite metaphor for the atoning work of crisis to think in financial categories, but think of somebody who not, suppose you owe a debt you cannot pay. Simple metaphor, I'll probably get emotional saying it because it's so wonderful to take it in again. You owe a debt, you cannot possibly pay. We all know what that feels like. You live in California like I did and you get a speeding ticket. It's like, you can never pay them because they're so ridiculously expensive nowadays. But anyway, you owe a debt, you cannot pay and you're thinking, what am I going to do? You feel helpless, right? You feel stuck. That's one aspect of our salvation with respect to our lives. legal obligation of obedience to God. And Jesus has solved that debt, not simply by paying the debt,

but by fully putting all of his money in our bank account. This is what we call the imputation of Christ's righteousness. My favorite image is Zechariah 3, the high priest Joshua, being clothed. Clothing is a great imagery for righteousness. Well, it is an image for righteousness all throughout the Bible, but it's a great way for us to understand what Jesus has accomplished for us. When our trust is in Christ, on terms of pure grace, God imputes Christ's righteousness to us. I think that's what Romans 4 teaches. Okay, he credits to us what Christ has done. So it's not just that Christ pays our debt.

It's that he puts all his money in our bank account. We have the righteous robes of Christ covering us. Therefore, we can live without fear, without guilt, without shame before God. We need more than just that. We're going to need our bodies raised from the debt, for example. But we need that and we have it. And I'm jealous that we be clear about that aspect of Christ's saving. work. Hope this video is helpful. There's much more to say about this topic, so see my longer video

for probably a more systematic treatment of this. Let me know what you think in the comments, and thanks for watching everybody.