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School Series. That concludes a class on

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You'll also get a bonus gift for your support.

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go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com front slash Summer 24. That's

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the number 24. Today, Back

1:20

by Popular Demand is a reissue of episode

1:23

183 from season five

1:25

of the podcast in which Pete

1:27

and I interviewed Jennifer Garcia-Bachall about

1:29

the various atonement theories that attempt

1:31

to explain Jesus's death. We explore

1:33

questions like what are the atonement

1:35

theories and what functions do they

1:37

each serve? What did Jesus's

1:40

crucifixion actually do? What does

1:42

Jesus's death, resurrection, and ascension mean theologically?

1:44

Is there a right atonement theory? Is

1:46

there the one that puts it all

1:49

together or do we have to just

1:51

stick with the diversity of it all?

1:54

And there's a lot more. So thanks for listening

1:56

and hope you enjoy this reissue. All

2:00

of it for the mystery right? And I

2:02

think that we have lost that concept of

2:04

the mystery as much as God but what

2:06

God is doing and Caesar's and so we

2:08

don't want mystery we once had be able.

2:10

To give these concrete words. And

2:13

style grams and powerpoint presentation

2:15

about it. But we've lost the

2:17

mystery if Paul acknowledged it, even as he's

2:19

trying to explain it like, how are we

2:21

to think we? We don't have mystery, We

2:23

don't need mystery with a. Good at that. Let's.

2:29

Talk about my goodness and. You. Know the

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3:25

Welcome Center for to the Podcast! So excited to

3:27

have you on faith and decided to be a

3:29

while before we jump into the topic was i'm

3:31

I'm eager chomping at the bit to get into

3:33

that. I think it's gonna be really relevant to

3:35

a lot of people just else in a why

3:38

Why devote your blaze to studying the Bible? How

3:40

did that come about for you? yeah so

3:42

well i grew up in the southern baptist

3:44

church and actually as many bad things that

3:46

came out of that there were some good

3:48

things that was just as implanted this love

3:50

for the bible inside a me and i

3:52

got a call the ministry while he was

3:54

in a southern baptist church and so let's

3:57

had sort of a long journey try to

3:59

figure out what might calling looks like

4:01

and what direction I should have headed.

4:03

And so I ended up not

4:05

just working in churches, but also studying

4:08

the Bible, especially the New Testament on

4:10

a PhD level, because I wanted to

4:13

understand it better and then make it

4:16

understandable to people in the church. And

4:18

so I've sort of always been with

4:20

one foot in the church and one

4:22

foot in the academy, and I just

4:24

love studying the literature of the Bible. But

4:26

I couldn't have a more perfect guess

4:28

to talk about what we're going to talk

4:30

about today, because this comes up so much

4:32

with people at the Bible for All

4:34

People. We keep deferring it and deferring it as much

4:37

as we possibly can. It's not that important. Which

4:40

is, how do we think about Jesus

4:43

and the big three, the death,

4:45

resurrection, ascension? What does it mean

4:47

for Jesus to have died,

4:50

resurrected, and ascended in Christian

4:52

theology? So it's not

4:54

as simple as kind of a one word

4:56

or even one theory answer. So could you

4:58

kind of lay the groundwork, map out what

5:00

these different theories are, and then let's take

5:02

a deeper dive into them and maybe see

5:04

if we can uncover some of the pros

5:06

and cons of each of these approaches. Sure.

5:09

There are actually a lot

5:11

of atonement theories, and so I just want to

5:13

run through some of them today. We're

5:15

not going to cover all of them, but I'm going

5:17

to run through Christus Victor, satisfaction

5:20

theory, penal substitutionary atonement,

5:23

moral influence or moral exemplar theory,

5:25

and scapegoat theory. I just want

5:27

to sort of explain them a

5:29

little bit and then assess what

5:31

they're based on in the Bible,

5:33

like what are their biblical foundations

5:35

or underpinnings, if you want to

5:37

say that, and then talk about sort of

5:39

some positives of each and some

5:42

problems of each. Excellent. Okay. Well,

5:44

let's just jump right in. You want to

5:46

start with this very fast fancy sounding one,

5:48

the Christus Victor. Yeah, who's that? Christus, yeah,

5:51

that's right. That's right. I'm going

5:53

to name my next kid then. First, I do

5:55

want to say something for those of you out

5:57

there who maybe don't know what atonement theory is.

6:00

is, because it's really not something that comes up

6:02

a lot in churches. It's

6:04

in the background of everything we

6:06

say, like when you hear someone

6:08

say, Jesus paid the price for

6:10

our sins, or Jesus took our

6:12

punishment, or took our place, or

6:14

Jesus defeated death and Satan on

6:16

the cross. Though there's actually an

6:18

atonement theory in the background of

6:20

those statements, right? And

6:23

so that's what I want to do, is kind of talk about what's

6:25

working in the background as we say

6:28

some of these statements about Jesus's life,

6:30

death, resurrection, ascension. So in

6:32

Christus Victor, this is

6:35

a theory that's forged from battlefield imagery.

6:37

So all of these you're going to

6:39

see are all metaphors, sort

6:41

of used to explain metaphors from the

6:43

Bible. So here in this

6:46

model, it has roots actually in the

6:48

early church, and it's

6:50

made a recent resurgence in

6:52

the last 50 years or

6:54

so, when a guy named Gustav Aulen,

6:56

articulating this theory in

6:58

his book, and it kind of caught

7:00

on in the public imagination more in

7:03

the academy. People started talking about it

7:05

more. But basically what it says is

7:07

that Jesus's life, death, and resurrection are

7:10

like the conclusion to this dramatic

7:12

battle between God and the forces of

7:14

evil. Jesus becomes the

7:16

victor over Satan and all the

7:18

evil forces in the world when

7:21

he dies and raises from the

7:23

dead. In some of

7:25

these versions, Jesus's death somehow breaks

7:27

the power of evil that holds

7:29

humanity captive. And if you want

7:31

to envision this and you know

7:33

about the lion, the witch, and

7:35

the wardrobe, when Aslan breaks the

7:37

stone table, right, and he bests

7:39

the white witch, that sort of

7:41

is a good illustration for what

7:43

the Christus Victor theory does. Okay,

7:46

so you mentioned earlier biblical underpinning. So

7:48

with Christus Victor, again, I think all

7:51

of these probably have some rootedness in

7:53

the biblical imagery, and the challenge is

7:55

a lot of these are metaphors and

7:57

pictures that we get, but what's the

7:59

biblical of this Christus Victor

8:01

theory. Yes. So there is

8:03

a battle, victory,

8:05

sort of freedom motif that runs

8:08

throughout the New Testament, and

8:10

it shows up in different strands of metaphors.

8:12

So one metaphor might

8:14

be a ransom scenario that Jesus'

8:17

death somehow paid a price to free us from

8:19

sin or evil or Satan. Other

8:21

metaphors imply that Jesus' life or

8:23

death and resurrection defeated

8:25

Satan and the powers of evil in

8:28

a very dramatic way by triumphing over

8:30

them. When you want to

8:32

think about the ransom aspect, there's a focal

8:34

verse in Mark, in Mark 1045, where

8:37

Jesus says, for even the Son of Man did not

8:39

come to be served, but to serve and to give

8:41

his life a ransom for many. So

8:43

some proponents of the ransom theory of

8:46

atonement, which is like an earlier version

8:49

of this, they interpret this one word

8:51

ransom to mean that God

8:53

had to pay Satan to obtain

8:56

humanity's freedom. But

8:58

that is a very fanciful reading

9:00

of this phrase. Like Mark most

9:02

likely uses the word ransom in

9:05

a general way, referring

9:07

to the price paid to free a

9:09

slave. He actually does not

9:11

explain how Jesus' life was a ransom

9:13

or to whom this ransom was paid.

9:15

You know, so yes, Lewis, he

9:18

does take it sort of because you mentioned him before. He

9:21

takes it as paying something

9:23

that's due to the white witch. He's

9:25

a Satan figure. So he probably knew

9:28

better. He just made a great story,

9:30

I think. It was a great story.

9:32

It's interesting how the Satan figure

9:34

is female. But anyway, we don't have

9:36

to talk about that right now. That's

9:38

a whole other podcast, you know, we'll have you on

9:40

to talk about that one. That's right. So

9:43

all the, like this theory and all these theories are

9:45

not just theories grabbed out of thin air. But

9:47

actually, they're all trying to grapple

9:50

with biblical themes

9:52

and texts and

9:55

concepts that lend

9:57

themselves towards death.

10:00

different ways of thinking about the

10:02

significance of the cross. That's right.

10:04

And sometimes they tie different motifs together

10:06

too. So when you're talking about Christus

10:08

Victor, not only does this ransom idea

10:10

comes in, but the idea of freedom

10:12

that Jesus frees us from the power

10:14

of evil, frees the earth

10:16

from the influence of Satan or from

10:19

evil, right? And even if you see

10:21

that coming up in different places in the

10:23

New Testament, it's all still a bunch

10:26

of mixed metaphors, right? I mean,

10:28

one example is like in Colossians

10:30

two, this one, people like this

10:32

one for the Christus Victor model. When

10:34

you were dead in your trespasses and

10:36

the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made

10:39

you alive together with him when he

10:41

forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the

10:43

record that stood against us with its

10:45

legal demands. And he set this aside,

10:47

nailing it to the cross. He disarmed

10:49

the rulers and authorities and made a

10:51

public example of them, triumphing over them

10:53

in it. So even in that little

10:55

section, you can see that idea of

10:57

freedom and triumphing over the powers, but

10:59

there's a bunch of other metaphors sort

11:01

of sprinkled in there, you know, circumcision

11:04

and forgiving our trespasses, erasing records, legal

11:06

demands, right? So I think it's a

11:08

good example of how there are so

11:10

many different metaphors in the Bible about

11:12

Jesus's death. And we're just trying to

11:14

make the best sense of them that

11:16

we can with these theories. Darrell

11:18

Bock Right. And that's why it's hard to sort

11:21

of pick out like

11:23

the way the Bible talks about the

11:25

cross because they have these different metaphors.

11:28

Mary Eilish Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of the

11:30

metaphors will be just coming from Paul. But the

11:32

good thing about Christus Victor is you actually see

11:34

this a little bit in the gospels too, which

11:36

is good. In

11:38

all the gospels, especially in the dark,

11:41

but we see Jesus's power over demons

11:43

and sickness, over the corrupt forces of

11:45

the world, over the chaos of waters,

11:48

all this stuff. And so it does come

11:50

up, but when you sort of put it

11:53

together in a package called Christus Victor, you

11:55

know, it's not exactly biblical, but it is

11:57

biblical, you know? Christian,

11:59

right? is the victor in a

12:01

battle, right? And that's,

12:04

I guess, an important metaphor way back

12:06

in the day when you've got all

12:08

these, you know, oppressive forces

12:10

and things like that. And it was, I'm

12:13

trying to backtrack to what you said earlier, the

12:17

very early on in the history of the church, this

12:19

was sort of a big deal, a way of thinking

12:21

about it perhaps. And then it

12:23

sort of died away but then came back more

12:25

in the last 50 years or so, right? Yes.

12:28

I mean, and they've been trying to

12:30

make it a little less violent. I

12:32

think the violent imagery bothers some people

12:34

and so recently it hasn't been as

12:36

violent. Like there's even someone who talks

12:38

about the narrative Christus victor. But

12:40

it does do a good job of paying

12:44

homage to what's happening in Scripture, especially when

12:46

you read Revelation and sort of the apocalyptic

12:48

imagery. And not to kind of

12:50

foreshadow, but I think one thing that maybe it

12:53

solves but also creates other problems with though is

12:55

it gives a

12:57

lot of power to whatever this

12:59

evil force is. And again, some people

13:01

might call that Satan or

13:04

so it's almost like there's an equal, it's almost

13:06

a yin and yang. So there's God and then

13:08

there's this evil force and God's

13:10

in this cosmic battle, which frankly is

13:12

kind of like an ancient near Eastern

13:14

maybe way of understanding all this stuff.

13:16

But I think for some people

13:18

that might be a little bit uncomfortable of like, okay,

13:21

so there's this force that actually

13:23

is pretty powerful. Like God has

13:25

to sacrifice Jesus in order

13:27

to defeat this pretty powerful people. My

13:29

hands are tied. I got

13:32

to do something. So is that a thing

13:34

that people might say as like maybe going

13:36

against this to you? Yes, that's one

13:38

of the negatives for sure, this potential for dualism.

13:40

And a lot of times early on it was,

13:43

they said it was Satan. Like

13:45

God had to rescue us

13:47

all from Satan and it gives Satan kind

13:49

of a lot of power in this. And

13:51

that's one reason why Anselm sort of came

13:54

up with the satisfaction theory after that, because

13:56

not only are we kind of uncomfortable.

14:00

with the idea of Satan having that much power,

14:02

but he was as well. Darrell Bock Okay. So Anselm,

14:04

when did he live and what did he say? Dr.

14:26

Anselm, when did he live and what did he say? Dr. John

14:52

F. Kennedy And that's an honor

14:54

and shame factor. So how does that, I think

14:57

it might actually be with

15:00

this satisfaction theory, I wonder

15:02

if contrasting it with this penal

15:04

substitutionary atonement theory might actually help

15:07

us understand it because in some

15:09

ways, we don't live in an

15:11

honor shame kind of culture, at least

15:13

in the West, here in America, 21st century. So

15:16

that may not

15:18

land as much. Dr. Anselm C.

15:20

DeRionne So maybe before we go there, would

15:22

that have landed more though in the ancient world,

15:24

like in the actual biblical world? Because you know,

15:26

we're big on like context and

15:28

understanding the world of the Bible, would

15:31

honor shame have been part of that ancient

15:33

context? Dr. Anselm C. DeRionne Yeah. I mean, honor

15:35

shame is part of the context of the writers and the

15:37

people in the biblical world. But

15:39

I think what happens, the Anselm does

15:41

is makes it about God's honor. Like

15:43

he kind of takes it out of

15:45

the human chess board or something and

15:47

makes it off stage, right?

15:49

And he starts talking about God's honor, like

15:52

God is a feudal Lord. And so in

15:54

that way, I think he jumps out of

15:56

the biblical world and off the biblical pages

15:58

to use metaphors. from his

16:00

own context. Pete I think,

16:02

I mean, he probably, I mean,

16:05

the irony here is that I think he's

16:07

definitely jumping off the pages of

16:10

the New Testament where God

16:13

willingly aligns God's self with

16:16

an act of shame, which is

16:18

the cross itself. The thing, I mean,

16:20

I totally agree with you. I

16:23

think the reason why this might still get some

16:26

support, even maybe in an indirect way,

16:28

is you do

16:30

see some of this stuff in the Hebrew

16:32

Bible, in the Old Testament, not throughout, but

16:35

you know, God's honor is at stake, you

16:37

know, and somebody has to, you know, the

16:39

whole scene with Moses and the Exodus story

16:42

and you know, I'm gonna wipe

16:44

everybody out because they've

16:46

disobeyed me, I'm looking bad. And

16:48

Moses says, well, you know, you

16:51

don't want to just wipe these people out because what's

16:53

Egypt gonna say? You know, your

16:56

honor is at stake here. So

16:58

there's something of it, which is frustrating to

17:00

me, frankly, you know, but we have an

17:02

ancient Bible, what are you gonna do? So

17:05

you know, Anselm, he's in his own context,

17:07

I guess, speaking of a feudal system

17:10

and you know, wronging is

17:12

superior, you can't just

17:15

let that shame go. And

17:17

I don't know, we still do,

17:19

we have that sort of in our

17:21

culture, not like that. I'm pretty shamed,

17:23

I don't know. You are, I know. Well,

17:26

what happens if a student disses

17:29

you in class or something? How

17:31

dare you? Do

17:33

you have doctor's order? I'm not petty, I'm not petty. Yeah,

17:35

I am. I'm not. A

17:40

calling is a powerful thing, it's a very

17:42

strong belief that there is something bigger for

17:44

you. It's about who you are and

17:46

where you're going in life. You may

17:48

be in college, you may be halfway through

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a career, but you want something different. There's

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a place for you at Union Presbyterian Seminary,

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where students are prepared for a call to

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people. I

20:27

want to jump into penal substitutionary atonement

20:29

because it's a fancy sounding one. It

20:31

has the most letters in it and

20:34

it's probably the one that most people are maybe most

20:36

familiar with. Can you just talk

20:38

to us about that? We talked about, Krista's Victor,

20:40

we talked about satisfaction. Talk to

20:42

us about this PSA or penal substitutionary atonement.

20:44

Yeah, I'll probably call it PSA from here

20:47

on out because this is hard to say.

20:49

Okay, so PSA is

20:51

actually sort of

20:53

a more modern version of Anselm's

20:56

Satisfaction Theory. It really doesn't come

20:58

about until we're

21:00

talking about Calvin and Luther, the

21:02

reformers in the

21:04

16th century. There's

21:07

a lot of legal imagery happening

21:09

here in PSA. You

21:11

get the vocabulary of justice and judgment and

21:13

punishment and debts and things like that. The

21:16

purpose of PSA is that God's

21:19

justice, so now we're not talking about God's

21:21

honor, we're talking about God's

21:23

justice, cannot allow sin to go

21:26

unpunished. So divine

21:28

justice requires that payment must

21:30

be made to satisfy that

21:32

justice. Some people actually bring

21:34

in the language of God's wrath, like in

21:37

order to ease or appease God's wrath, the

21:39

payment has to be made. So in this

21:41

scenario, God sends Jesus to suffer the punishment

21:43

for human sin in order to pay that

21:45

penalty for us. All of this should be

21:48

sounding familiar because this is the language,

21:50

lots of evangelical churches, all of them

21:52

probably use. So

21:54

with Jesus' debts in, God's

21:56

holiness or God's justice are

21:59

both satisfied. by the substitution

22:01

of Jesus for sinful humanity. So that's

22:03

where you get the substitutionary part of

22:05

that. And yeah, so it's actually

22:07

sort of recent, like it doesn't go back to

22:09

the early church fathers like Christus Victor does, and

22:11

it doesn't go back to the

22:14

12th century like satisfaction. Pete

22:16

Yeah, but it's this

22:18

legal context,

22:20

right? That remind

22:23

me, Luther was training to be a lawyer. Luther, you got

22:25

it right? Luther member. Mary Beth Yes,

22:27

so he is speaking in his context, from what

22:30

he knows, and also to his context,

22:32

right? Pete I mean, one reminder

22:34

is that it's hard to do theology and

22:36

leave your own context and what we bring

22:38

into it, right? Mary Beth Absolutely. Pete

22:41

I find that fascinating. It's also frustrating, but also

22:43

a little bit liberating because you know, you can

22:45

look at these things and say, well,

22:48

why have people in the church thought

22:50

this? Well, there's a pretty major, the

22:52

whole Protestant Reformation in a sense was

22:55

really deeply, deeply

22:57

rooted in this model

23:00

of the atonement and

23:02

what the cross did. And I don't

23:05

know, it's nice to know

23:07

that. Mary Beth Right, well, and there's also though, there's

23:10

the complicated thing is that there's a

23:12

lot of context, you know, whether it's

23:14

Anselm in the 12th century or Luther

23:16

and Calvin and their legal background, there's

23:18

a lot kind of brought into the

23:21

text, but there's also some hooks within

23:23

the text too. So, you

23:25

know, we talked some about the passages

23:27

and Mark for Christus Victor.

23:29

What are sort of these passages for

23:32

PSA and why, you

23:34

know, how have we grounded this in the text? Mary

23:37

Beth Yeah, right. So, this is so

23:39

interesting to me because in my opinion,

23:41

looking at the New Testament, sort of

23:43

overarching message of the New Testament, PSA

23:45

has the shakiest biblical support of all

23:47

these major atonement theories. But

23:49

what people do is they will pluck

23:51

these verses of Scripture and kind of

23:53

tie them together in order to support

23:56

the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. So,

23:59

it's kind of annoying because It makes it sound like

24:01

it's very quote-unquote biblical, but

24:04

it's really cherry-picked, I guess is

24:06

what I wanted to say. Right?

24:09

There's definitely a sacrifice motif in the New Testament

24:11

when it comes to Jesus's steps, for sure. And

24:14

loosely, maybe, it can be interpreted

24:16

as substitution. But there's also a

24:18

lot of the different motifs that

24:20

are combined with the sacrifice. And

24:22

it feels like the PSA people

24:24

will just pluck out those

24:27

little sacrifice words

24:29

or things like that. Before it, can we

24:31

back up because you just mentioned something that

24:33

I think people maybe – if they're not

24:35

familiar – right, I think people are familiar

24:38

with the language around it or the idioms

24:40

or the cliches. But can you just –

24:42

when you say penal and substitutionary and atonement,

24:44

can you maybe just for one minute on

24:46

each of those words? Because I think it

24:48

might be confusing because you say it may

24:51

be – yes, substitutionary might be hard

24:53

to find. So, Ed, can you

24:55

just break those down real quick? Yeah, yeah. The

24:58

penal part, of course, has to do with

25:00

paying a payment. Or some people will say,

25:02

you know, you committed a crime and you

25:05

have to face the punishment, so Jesus takes

25:07

your place with the punishment. So that's in

25:09

the penal part. The substitution also comes in

25:11

there in that he has to

25:13

substitute himself for you. So, like, both

25:16

of those things are working together in this theory.

25:18

So there's a crime committed – There's a

25:20

crime committed – That's the penal. And then

25:22

Jesus substitutes himself for you, who should get

25:24

the punishment. That's the substitutionary part. Right. The

25:27

crime is against God's justice, right? Okay. Okay.

25:31

Good. You

25:33

know, although, I mean, speaking of maybe the shaky

25:36

foundation for this, a thought came

25:38

to my mind – I can't

25:40

remember why I read this, but,

25:42

you know, Jesus died for you.

25:46

Doesn't necessarily mean instead of you and

25:48

took your place. That's right. Right?

25:51

It means on your behalf, which doesn't

25:53

explain the mechanism, right? The

25:55

whole idea of, like, okay, what exactly did the

25:57

death of Christ do? But it's not

25:59

– not saying what

26:02

in English it sometimes comes across as

26:04

saying. And I remember a few

26:06

years ago, Jennifer, just I don't

26:08

even know what I was reading, nothing to do with the cross

26:10

or anything. I just sort of stopped reading. I looked out the

26:12

window and I said, I have no idea

26:14

what the cross is about anymore. I just

26:16

don't know. There are so many different

26:18

ways of looking at it. And sometimes

26:21

what you think is so plain and obvious

26:23

in the text is,

26:25

at best, a creative reading of it,

26:27

if not in some cases, a misunderstanding

26:29

of it. So, yeah,

26:31

I mean, if you don't mind, keep going with that a little

26:33

bit because this is the big one, right? Right. It is. There

26:36

aren't too many moral exemplar people out there.

26:38

We haven't gotten that much better. You know,

26:41

Chris is Victor, but PSA is

26:43

the central and most

26:46

clearly, well, the only one. It is

26:48

the biblical notion of what

26:51

Jesus' death meant. And, you

26:54

know, maybe we can pick that apart a

26:56

little bit here. And again, not to destroy

26:58

people's lives, but just to, a little

27:01

bit, destroy people's lives. No, not too much. Well,

27:03

no. To give the diversification of the fact that

27:05

in the history of the church, this is not

27:07

the only way of thinking about it and for

27:09

good reason because the Bible itself is a little

27:11

bit ambiguous about some of this stuff. Yeah, and

27:13

it's also relatively recent in terms of the history

27:15

of the church. Right. So, yeah, maybe, again, go

27:17

back to like some of those biblical underpinnings. Like

27:20

where do people find this in the Bible? Yeah.

27:22

So, you know, I told you I grew up Southern

27:24

Baptist. And so we used to have these little tracts

27:26

that we would put on people's cars that, you know,

27:29

do you know Jesus? And then it was an

27:31

evangelism tract. And so many times it had the

27:33

Roman road or the Romans road on it, different

27:35

verses, you know, sort of from Romans explaining things.

27:38

And this is sort of the key one. It's

27:40

in Romans 3, 23, for all

27:42

have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

27:44

And then it goes on and just kind of listen

27:46

as I read this, just kind of see all the

27:48

different imagery that comes up here, all different metaphors. They

27:51

are now justified by His grace as

27:53

a gift through the redemption that is

27:55

in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth

27:57

as a sacrifice of atonement. back

28:00

to that word in a second, by his

28:02

blood, accepted through faith. God did

28:04

this to show God's own righteousness because

28:06

in God's divine forbearance, God has passed

28:08

over the sins previously committed. It was to

28:11

prove at the present time that God

28:13

is just and God justifies the one who

28:15

has faith in Jesus. So you see, you

28:17

hear all the words coming up, the

28:19

just and the righteousness and all those things.

28:22

But it also says that God had

28:24

passed over sins previously. It

28:27

brings up this term, sacrifice

28:29

of the toment and in the Greek,

28:31

it's, is, he lost areion. And

28:33

people take that word and they will

28:36

translate it as propitiation or expiation, all

28:38

these huge words that no one ever

28:40

really knows what they mean when they

28:42

say them. But it really is just

28:45

a general term that used to talk

28:47

about like the atonement seat, the toning

28:49

place, right? And it seems that

28:51

the New Testament writers use it in

28:53

a general way to kind of talk

28:55

about the sacrificial system in general. But

28:58

what we do is when we translate the

29:00

words and we explain them, we say, Oh,

29:02

this is a propitiation. This is an expiation.

29:05

This is a sacrifice of atonement. But we

29:07

don't know what the words mean. We don't

29:09

know how the authors were really using them.

29:11

They're very vague. And so this

29:13

is how it happens that people who

29:15

support PSA will pick these verses out

29:18

and say, see, it says propitiation right

29:20

here. It says justice right here. So

29:22

they don't realize there's a whole system

29:24

of metaphors working and a whole Old

29:26

Testament that's behind this, right? And they're

29:28

just defining the words by how they

29:31

have heard their pasture define it or

29:33

whatever. Yeah. So

29:35

there's a lot of metaphors going on

29:37

or at least concepts that are worth digging

29:40

in. Right. I think we make assumptions about

29:42

what they mean and we're kind of importing

29:45

our traditions baggage within

29:47

those definitions. And I have to say this

29:49

before we move on too much further, which

29:51

is one of my

29:53

problems with this theory is it

29:56

doesn't solve this old. I think

29:58

it actually creates another. Problem. For.

30:01

People. Just. Even philosophically

30:03

are conceptually which is. If.

30:06

We have to say that God

30:08

has to because of God's justice,

30:10

do something. We're. Kind of back

30:12

to Plato's we needed to stiff fancy

30:15

term as he suffers dilemma rigorous. Were

30:17

Plato's like okay with the god has

30:19

to do something aren't the things that.has

30:21

to do? Those are more like gods

30:24

and the gods and so. That

30:26

it kind of puts justice as a

30:28

thing that God has to abide by

30:30

for and in a lot of in

30:32

my tradition, nothing that doesn't have to

30:34

do anything. We'd say things like will

30:37

God's ways are above our ways ratings

30:39

And so when something looks unjust. It's.

30:41

Not on just because God kind of defines were

30:43

justices And yet now when it comes to like

30:45

the most important part of our faith which is

30:48

like what happens with Jesus' death and resurrection now

30:50

of a sudden God's hands are tied and and

30:52

Geico has no choice but to follow this. Thing

30:55

called justice. And

30:57

such as is. it always irks me a

30:59

little bit of like okay, we'll who's got

31:01

here So whenever we can explain things, God

31:03

is the most important thing in our definition

31:05

of justice has to. Just wherever God does

31:07

is just born it comes to like Jesus,

31:10

death and resurrection. Justice is the most important

31:12

thing in God's hands are tied and we

31:14

said say well you know God just had

31:16

to do this. It just gets really frustrating

31:18

to me so even see them beyond them.

31:20

The biblical Texas' It doesn't middle of

31:22

sense to me. Now it does and doesn't actually

31:24

make sense in the biblical text. He that's

31:27

as much as you're rushing through. And even

31:29

if you're looking at this Gospels and you

31:31

caesar the way that Jesus is taught this

31:33

is not the picture of gotta weed out

31:35

the god's hands are tied that god is

31:37

in a waiting for somebody to die so

31:39

that guy can forgive us the else when

31:41

you're thinking about on the parable the Prodigal

31:44

Son you know the father forgive the son

31:46

when he comes to that before even it

31:48

says anything until we we get it's a

31:50

very different picture of that we get in

31:52

the Gospels. To the deny it

31:54

is, I don't want to back, maybe to the

31:56

Hebrew Bible, but just pause language here in Romans

31:58

three of. The passing over.

32:01

Sandwich. Seems to have some passover

32:04

references obviously and overtones. The wow,

32:06

How did people who advocate for.

32:08

P. I say talk about how

32:10

God was able to forgive

32:12

sins before Jesus. That's a

32:15

good question. I think some of them

32:17

will sort of use this like retroactive

32:19

like asserts in Oh Jesus As Death.went

32:21

back and retroactively forgave, but that's that's

32:23

really none of that reading of Daughter

32:25

Said or that readings of the Gospels

32:27

either. So that's how the new srt

32:29

to find it. I guess. Oka

32:31

murder was always true even

32:34

before Jesus Lion and. But.

32:37

But you know that sort of takes the

32:39

shock out of the system innocence. The way

32:41

Paul talks about a good mood. Listen, this

32:43

marvelous thing has happened is it wasn't as

32:45

we were for the rest. And I get

32:48

out. You know, Just you know. Jennifer the

32:50

Zebra Romans throughout. Just one enters the people

32:52

who are listening. Romans.

32:55

Three is a passage who are spending

32:57

a lot of time studying. And

33:00

not assuming what is happening because there's

33:02

a lot of stuff going on there

33:04

and and Nina were just touching on

33:06

some of them here. But even words

33:08

like Redemption in Redeem is like a

33:10

rescue word. It's it's not.

33:12

It's not a sacrifice and animal by the

33:14

blood. You know it's it's it's a it's

33:17

a different kind of word. And in oh

33:19

God Did is to show God's own righteousness.

33:22

And you know again and in modern

33:24

even jokers me talk about the righteousness

33:27

of God and that is. A

33:30

sort of i get in character

33:32

of God Like you know, a

33:34

basic part of his constituents is

33:36

is that what is how.is constituted

33:38

and we're not. You know where

33:40

on righteous got his writers, but

33:42

righteous there is. It doesn't mean

33:45

that it means that you know

33:47

God's righteousness is God's act. In

33:50

redeeming humanity it's it's an act

33:52

of faithfulness and it's not like.is

33:54

the pure rights as sovereign lord

33:57

looking down and thou shalt not

33:59

Games. On the as more because

34:01

as hard as profit and they're not,

34:03

it's that the righteousness of God is

34:05

what God does. It's God's right action,

34:07

right? exactly? Yeah, so he I just

34:09

and unjust. I mean, I want to

34:11

sort of push people little bit to

34:14

feel like to feel the responsibility. Of

34:16

studying passages like bad. And

34:18

preferably maybe even outside of our comfort zones

34:21

from people who might not normally read. No.

34:23

Commentary studied bibles things like back as

34:25

it is actually an amazing. Pieces

34:28

in a Theology from for A

34:30

Just doesn't mean. What? People typically

34:32

think it means run and lot of

34:35

them even make it even broader. But

34:37

I was like to point out if

34:39

you read the first eleven chapters and

34:41

how Paul sort of tries to end

34:43

this. Conundrum. That

34:45

he sort of what he works himself into a bit of a

34:47

not in stride to figure it out. And. At the

34:49

end. It. Is ends in this doxology

34:52

rice like who knows the miseries I

34:54

got sick of. We just try to

34:56

like such as way says eleven chat

34:58

line sorry yes it's like a we

35:00

think cause I got it all figured

35:02

out and is writing a see it

35:04

as but even in the larger context

35:06

of that letter. Sort of ends with

35:08

like i, you know what damaged who can understand

35:10

the ways of God freely Ah, so I just

35:12

the i'm an easy a d Have any thoughts

35:14

on that, but I think that's a good pretty

35:17

good point among. yeah, Jere I think that

35:19

you that the word right there mystery spray

35:21

in it's all recognize is this all of

35:23

this is a mystery right? And I think

35:25

that we have lost that concept of the

35:27

mystery as much as God that what thought

35:29

is doing and Jesus and so we don't

35:32

want necessarily want said. Be. Able to did

35:34

it does concrete words. And and

35:36

diagrams and l a powerpoint presentation about

35:38

it. but we've lost industry. This is

35:40

Paul acknowledged sits even as he's trying

35:42

to explain it like how are we

35:44

to think we'd We don't have mystery

35:47

we don't need. Mysteries and that's

35:49

why why we have multiple approaches

35:51

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38:18

We have a couple more to go here. So

38:20

let's try to hit those. The

38:22

moral exemplar or influence theory, could you just

38:25

explain that? Because that's...I don't know if that's

38:27

common today or not, but it used to

38:29

be pretty darn common. It's not that common.

38:32

It was kind of rejected by the

38:34

Protestant reformers, and a lot of evangelical

38:37

Christians today were rejected. But it's actually

38:39

as old as Anselm's satisfaction theory, and

38:41

it actually has found some acceptance among

38:43

progressive Christians over the years, right? So

38:45

Peter Abelard was the guy who developed

38:48

this theory in the 12th century, and

38:50

he's trying to account for the love

38:52

of God and

38:54

for the impact of Jesus's ministry on the

38:57

lives of Christians. And so

38:59

basically, the purpose and result of Christ's

39:01

death was to move humans

39:04

toward moral improvement or right action.

39:06

So it denies that Christ died

39:08

to satisfy any principle of divine

39:11

justice, and teaches instead that

39:13

Jesus's whole life, culminating

39:16

in his death, was designed

39:18

to display God's love and

39:20

to lead people to repentance, to

39:23

reconciliation with God, and to

39:25

transformation. So again,

39:27

just because we spent a little time on Romans 3,

39:31

are there any...was Abelard leaning

39:33

on the Bible in any of this? Yes.

39:37

The theme of God demonstrating love in

39:39

Jesus is sort of ubiquitous in

39:41

the New Testament, you know, and also imitating Jesus

39:43

in that. Paul talks about it

39:45

in Philippians, you know, imitate me as I imitate

39:47

Christ. Jesus and John calls

39:49

the disciples to love others like he loved them

39:52

and be willing to lay down their life. Jesus

39:55

encourages the disciples in the synoptic gospels to

39:57

tick up their cross and follow him. And

40:00

so it's all throughout the Gospels. But one

40:02

focal verse is Romans 5.8, but

40:04

God demonstrates God's love for us in that

40:07

while we were still sinners, Christ died for

40:09

us. And so there's that died for us

40:11

language, but it reads

40:13

very differently here, right, than the

40:15

penal substitution or sacrifice, right? God's

40:18

showing us God's love. And

40:20

it's a beautiful metaphor. And the people who have picked up

40:22

on it, I think what

40:24

happens is these are the people that end up really

40:28

emulating the life of Jesus in

40:30

their walk of faith. You know, there's one thing

40:32

you just said that triggered something. I think it's

40:34

really important how, there's even

40:37

language of sacrifice here, right, in

40:39

Romans and something that probably supports

40:41

another kind of theory. These

40:45

things overlap, you know, and

40:47

just seeing the word sacrifice,

40:50

you can't take that and

40:52

load it full of, let's

40:55

say, penal substitutionary atonement. Because

40:58

again, the mechanism of how the

41:01

sacrifice does something, that's

41:04

not explained very well, frankly, is it? I mean,

41:06

I don't think it's explained well. That's why it's

41:08

frustrating to me. It's just, you have these metaphors,

41:10

you have these ways

41:12

of thinking that made sense to

41:14

people back then, and there was a whole background

41:16

to it. But we've lost

41:18

that. And so we sort of inject it

41:21

with, a sense of

41:23

late medieval theology when you have Luther and

41:25

Calvin, and to just, it's

41:30

okay to say, I don't quite understand how

41:32

this atonement thing works, you know? And

41:34

I'm gonna try to embrace the

41:37

different voices in the New Testament. Well, that

41:39

seems like a whole other podcast of, where

41:42

again, my tradition, more as an

41:44

evangelical, was that our entire

41:47

salvation of whether we go to heaven or hell

41:49

is whether or not we mentally agree to, you

41:52

know, substitutionary atonement. That's what

41:54

you like, we were not allowed the mystery

41:57

of that, because our eternal salvation depended on

41:59

the surface. certain on the theory,

42:02

which the Bible itself complicates

42:04

that. And this is how it works exactly,

42:06

and you must believe exactly this, how it

42:08

exactly works. It's like,

42:10

I read the Bible, I can't do that. You

42:13

don't just trust that Jesus does something. This is

42:15

how. It's that you have to believe this is

42:17

how. Right. And that's how you get

42:19

saved. With your whole heart. Right. And

42:22

if you don't, eh. Or part of your heart over several times.

42:24

Right. I asked Jesus into my heart like eight times. Right. I

42:26

think there's a little piece took every time. Yeah. And

42:29

I was like, well, I think we

42:31

could just talk so much about this. Yeah. And

42:33

we have so many questions. But let's get

42:35

to this scapegoat theory. What's the next one?

42:38

Our last installment theory for today. Right. So

42:41

this is a newer theory, right? It

42:43

comes from René Girard, and he was

42:45

a literary critic and an anthropologist and

42:48

a theologian, like very interdisciplinary. But

42:50

what he does is he first is analyzing

42:53

human cultures and their language

42:55

and their literature and he proposes that

42:57

there's this problem common to all humanity

42:59

and he calls it mimetic violence. And

43:01

so he goes on and talks about

43:03

how human societies all across the world

43:06

deal with this violence that becomes

43:08

cyclical by focusing their conflict

43:10

on a single victim, a scapegoat. And you

43:12

can see this in all different

43:14

societies. You can see it in the Old Testament

43:16

as well. And so this outsider

43:19

or marginalized person or animal will

43:21

bear the burden of blame. And

43:24

then that violence in society will sort of

43:26

ease for a little bit. And so what

43:28

Girard says when he gets to the New

43:30

Testament, he says, well, Jesus is the last

43:33

scapegoat or he's supposed to be this last

43:35

scapegoat because when he dies, then the gospel

43:37

writers tell his story and show,

43:39

look, he's innocent and we human

43:42

beings scapegoated him and killed

43:44

him. And in that revelation

43:46

that the gospels make, it helps

43:48

us understand our own nature and

43:50

our own scapegoating tendencies. And

43:53

then that frees us from the cycle of violence.

43:55

And so, you know, in a way it's close

43:57

to the moral influence theory in that we're We're

44:00

sort of being freed from

44:03

ourselves. You know, we're being saved from

44:05

ourselves as human beings. We need to

44:07

follow Jesus, but it's not that, you

44:09

know, God needs to be appeased or

44:11

anything like that, but we need to

44:13

recognize the violence at the heart of

44:15

our societies, and then we can move

44:17

forward and stop the sin. Darrell

44:19

Bock So it also, I

44:21

mean, I think you said this indirectly, but if this

44:24

is right, I think it's important for people to hear. I

44:29

mean, not to overstate it, it sort of corrects bad

44:33

views of God. Dr. Neerah

44:55

and then we're like projecting that violence onto

44:58

God. And so this is where a lot of people

45:01

can't swallow this theory. They don't like that

45:03

idea that we've projected our violence onto God,

45:05

but there are lots of people now who

45:07

are exploring more nonviolent

45:10

atonement theologies here, and

45:13

I think it's really intriguing. I think it's something that

45:15

we need to consider. So few people know

45:18

about Gerard or read about him, but

45:20

it does make sense,

45:22

right? Yeah, yeah. And

45:25

I mean, he was an anthropologist. He was, yeah.

45:27

Right, probably what he did. And

45:31

you know, look, I mean, again, this is not the word

45:33

that's going to help everybody, but looking at the evolution

45:35

of religion, blood's been

45:37

there from a very, very early

45:39

time, long before the Israelites ever came on

45:41

the scene. And

45:43

it's almost as if how

45:46

else could the ancient Israelites have

45:49

expressed a devotion to their

45:51

God apart from

45:53

a sacrificial blood-oriented

45:56

system? And

45:59

I mean, the way I think Gerard is complicated

46:01

and you know a lot more about him than I do.

46:03

I just... He's French, whatever. He's

46:05

a smart guy, but won all these

46:07

awards. But in the cross,

46:12

it's like God saying, that's it. We're

46:15

done with this now. We're done

46:18

with scapegoating. We're done with putting

46:20

your scapegoating on me, even though the

46:23

Old Testament might do this occasionally and

46:25

maybe the New Testament too, I don't

46:27

know. But it's sort of a break

46:29

with... It's

46:32

a dramatic theory. At least

46:35

as I understand it, it's a break with the

46:38

way humans have always done

46:41

it. And that's why I find it

46:43

very liberating even if I don't quite understand it.

46:46

But that's my sabbatical project

46:49

trying to... I feel

46:51

like, yeah, it would help us so

46:53

much if we could just pick up

46:55

Gerard and easily read him. He's not

46:58

easy to read. But just like the

47:00

moral influence theory, what happens is that

47:02

you see change in people. And I

47:05

think what is really negative about PSA

47:07

is that people say, okay, God did

47:10

all the work. All I have to

47:12

do is believe. And then the change,

47:14

the transformation, the long cycle of reconciliation

47:16

to God just isn't there.

47:18

And so this is the strength

47:21

of scapegoat theory and moral influence theory

47:23

that we are participating in this. It's

47:26

not something that happens off the stage of history and,

47:28

oh, I don't have to do anything about it now,

47:30

but we're in it. Darrell Bock We're in it,

47:32

right, right, exactly. And one

47:34

thing is that how... I

47:36

mean, even the way that I describe my own take on

47:39

it, you have to

47:41

work with that. You have to think about

47:43

the Bible differently and

47:46

the revelation of God in history, like

47:49

in the Hebrew Scriptures differently

47:51

than what

47:53

I think an evangelical system would be

47:55

comfortable with. And I disagree with them,

47:57

but I understand that problem because... If,

48:01

you know, Israel just does what

48:03

Israel does and understands God because of its

48:05

being a tribal culture, rather

48:08

than this is God ordaining from Mount Sinai, you

48:10

will sacrifice here and here and this is what

48:12

I need. You know, it

48:14

just, it can create certain problems for people.

48:16

But you know, in a sense, the

48:18

root of all, the root of that problem again is

48:21

what is the Bible and what do you do with it, which

48:23

is what we talk about here a lot. It really, we keep

48:27

circling back to that question of

48:30

what we expect the Bible to be doing

48:32

and looking at

48:34

it anthropologically can

48:36

I think very often be a healthy corrective to

48:39

sort of a

48:41

rulebook reading of it and say, well, this is just

48:43

what it says, we can't interrogate it or question it

48:45

or anything like that. Dr. Maryam

48:53

talked about all these different theories and I

48:55

know some people want the answer, which is

48:57

like, which actually happened? The right one here.

49:00

You've got 10 seconds. To those people, like, how

49:02

would you kind of wrap up kind of in

49:04

all your studies, how have you come to land

49:06

on some of this stuff? Yeah, so

49:08

I really like what New Testament scholar,

49:10

Joel B. Green suggests and other scholars

49:12

do as well. But there's not just

49:15

one theory that can capture what

49:17

he calls the kaleidoscopic picture of atonement

49:19

that we get in the biblical witness.

49:22

So we can't just throw

49:24

these out there and say, which one do you

49:26

like best? You pick. You know, it's much better

49:28

to think of it as a kaleidoscope. There are

49:30

lots of different metaphors and images. And so we

49:32

need to take these atonement theories, try

49:35

to understand them, but realize that there is

49:37

mystery and there's also lots of things

49:39

happening, lots of things going

49:41

on. Like if I were to describe

49:43

it like a tree, there are all these

49:46

different branches that come out that are

49:48

atonement theories, right, in different contexts. Anselm's speaking

49:50

to his context and Calvin and Luther speaking

49:52

to their context. And we're still in a

49:54

different context than context in those. So we're

49:57

still more branches are coming out of this

49:59

tree. And so we need to look

50:01

at it as a whole. The thing that bothers me is

50:04

that at one point, we have to

50:06

say, are there some

50:08

disease branches that need to be cut out?

50:11

The ones that do not illuminate the

50:13

idea of salvation in the biblical witness,

50:15

but they actually distort it. And the

50:18

fruit of them is actually rotten. And

50:20

I've really been thinking and studying and

50:22

wondering if PSA isn't one of those

50:24

disease branches. There

50:27

are lots of theologians that try

50:29

to still incorporate it into their

50:31

multi-layered ideas of atonement, but I

50:33

don't know. Yeah, sometimes the

50:35

tensions may be too unbearable to hold

50:38

them all together. So, you know. Yes.

50:41

Well, and sometimes, like you said, it may

50:43

not even be necessary in theory

50:45

or the concept of the theory, but

50:47

just how it's borne out in

50:50

the world. Yeah. Maybe it does

50:52

more harm than good sometimes. And so it may

50:54

not be salvageable language to hold

50:56

on to. That's right. I mean,

50:58

it would be hard to cut that off

51:00

because so much of our language, so much

51:03

of our music, the hymnology that we have

51:05

in the church, it revolves around PSA. There's

51:07

got to be, I think, a way to

51:10

explain it better so it doesn't lead us

51:12

away from Jesus and Scripture, but leads us

51:14

toward that. Excellent. Well, Jennifer,

51:16

thank you so much for walking

51:18

us through, which I think can

51:21

be a really complicated and personal

51:24

topic around atonement theories and Jesus and

51:26

all of that. So just thank you

51:28

so much for walking us through that

51:30

in such a smart and helpful way.

51:32

No problem. Thank you. Thank you. All

51:34

right. Well, we'll talk to you again soon, and you'll

51:36

be popping up here and again. You're a friend of

51:38

the podcast. You've done a course for us in the

51:41

past and all that good stuff. So we look forward

51:43

to hearing more from you in the future. Thanks so

51:45

much. See you later. Well,

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