Why Penal Substitution Is NOT the Gospel

I came to heal. You raised your fist. I came in love. You called for blood. I healed the sick. You struck my face. I came to save, but you curse my name. I die for you, my wicked child. I die for you. And I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I carried you. You cast me out. You shouted dead and I stayed out. You poured your head, but I did not move. I stayed right here to comfort you and I carried you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. Kill me. Take all my love. Give me all right. Just come back home. Oh, I'd forgive you. I'd forgive you. I love you still.

Well, hello and welcome to Idol Killer, a ministry dedicated to introducing you to the holy and living God of scripture. I'm your host, Warren McGru, and today I'm joined by several friends to respond to a recent Trinity Radio broadcast that featured Steve Greg and explored the topic of penal substitutionary atonement.

So, first up uh joining us today is uh the infamous Phil Bray. Uh Phil runs the popular YouTube channel Leviticus is Fun where he explores the Torah, sacrifice, priesthood, atonement through like a second temple Jewish lens. His work focuses on recovering the original biblical meaning of Israel's sacrificial system, challenging modern misreadings of Leviticus that import some later categories. And he's also the author of Leviticus on the butcher's block, which is a book that I've linked below. So, if you like Phil and you want to learn more about him, uh, and you want to hear more about his views on the atonement, the work of Christ, definitely recommend checking that out. Phil, welcome to Idolkiller. It's your first time here, man. I hope it won't be your last.

>> Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Um, yeah, it's 5:00 a.m. in Sydney and still dark and I've got my I'll be y at my most creative at 5:00 a.m. with the coffee, I think.

>> Well, I certainly appreciate you. uh joining us so early and uh and I know our our uh viewers are going to appreciate your insights here as well. Um, now joining us Phil is uh another infamous fellow Kevin George. Uh Kevin welcome to Idolkiller. Now Kevin is a theologian. He's an author specializing in atonement reconciliation early Christian sociology. His work also engages deeply with scripture, the church fathers and the historical development of atonement theology and he's written the book uh atonement and reconciliation and uh you can check out his work linked in the description as well. Kevin, this is also your first time on Idolkiller. Welcome and thank you for joining us.

>> Yes, thank you. Yes, uh my book is available on Amazon. I do I am working on an update which I hope to have out by uh June. It be a second revision. the cord will still remain the same. It'll just be stronger, better, um, and hopefully more useful than the first one.

>> Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. And, uh, and then also we've got another gentleman. Now, uh, here we go. This is this is another first time guest on Idolkiller, Roser Powitzki. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Uh he's a writer researcher focused on spiritual formation, healing, biblical anthropology. His work explores the relational and restorative nature of salvation and he challenges reductionist and transactional models of redemption. And he also is a published author. You guys are making me feel inadequate today. Uh he's written the book Clean, which I've linked to in the description below. Roser, welcome to the channel, sir.

>> Good to be here. I guess I'm filling in for Will Hus, too. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to represent Will as best I can.

>> Oh, don't do that. You'll bring the channel down. Uh, this is this is an improvement. This is an improvement. No, I appreciate you being here.

>> Just got to talk fast and be snarky.

>> That's it. Yeah. I mean, you got to grow the beard out a little bit. Um, you know, but other than other than that, I think this is a good standin. And uh and then also joining us, this is no stranger to Idol Killer. This is another infamous fellow, the dapper, Mr. Paul Vandrey. Everybody who's watched our program should be familiar with Paul. He's a Christian apologist, researcher, and commenter focused on biblical theology, early Christian history, the development of Western sociology in contrast with earlier models. And his work examines how medieval and reformation categories reshape the way many Christians understand just simple things like sin, justice, and redemption. Paul, welcome back to Idolkiller, sir.

>> Thanks for having me. Hello, gentlemen.

Now again, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, Will Hes could not be here to join us. Uh something about needing to wash and trim his beard. Um I'm not I'm not really sure, but I've linked his video uh or his I've linked his book in the video description below. He wrote a book called Crushing the Great Serpent, but we're I'm giving him a hard time. He's actually preparing, I believe, a a Sunday sermon uh tomorrow. So, um, we hope he does well there. But gentlemen, welcome to this all-star panel here on Idolkiller. I appreciate you all.

Um, what I want to do is I don't want to dominate the conversation. I'm I'm a little notorious myself for being long-winded, but I I want to host and moderate and create a a free format where you guys can speak up and inter interject as you would like, but I just want to kind of lay out the things that I'm seeing here for our audience. Uh, I'm sure we're going to find some areas where we're all agreeing, but today we're responding to a recent Trinity radio broadcast that featured Steve Greg. And um, it was on the topic of atonement, the work of Christ. And it was supposed to be a defense of of PSA, but I think by his own framing, he actually didn't do that. He admits that he hasn't studied the church fathers, hasn't read scholarship challenging PSA. He says he doesn't consider himself a wellschooled theologian about these different theories. And I'm not criticizing him for his honesty. I don't think any of us are. Uh I appreciate that disclaimer, but a lot of those statements that he made to that effect can get overlooked given the the length of the video and buried in other claims that he made. Um, so I wanted to note that. But I think more importantly um than his confession of a lack of of expertise in redemption models, I think we we would say that he rejected a a moral framework that PSA operates on. Um, he kind of presented it more of a participatory model of salvation. Um, he refuses to treat PSA as the controlling model which I you know I appreciate. He also admitted that it was a late development from Ansom and and modified throughout the reformation which I appreciated. So he's not completely unaware of the historical development of these things. Um, but um, I think the the bigger issue as I saw it was that he didn't recognize the competing motivations between God can freely pardon the repentant and wants to restore versus because of some standard of divine justice, God can't forgive the repentant and must penalize the the innocent Christ. So those were some of the the bigger takeaways that I had at a thousand foot level.

Um, but before we do that, and I don't want to I don't want to misrepresent Steve because he's a really he's a really uh comes across very sincere, likable, um, and I don't want to just dog pile on him and and treat him like he's he's uh the worst human being ever. But I do want to contextualize what some of the claims that he made. And so I think to do that it would be beneficial just if we start out with a a statement from him as well so we can understand one that he's not an expert and two maybe cut him a little bit of slack here but here we go.

>> Well the truth is I do not consider myself a well schchooled theologian about the atonement theories and these

>> So I think I think I I want to say thank you to Steve for acknowledging that. Um, and so with that being said, we've got some guys here that I think are very well well schooled and studied on this. And so we can push back here. Does anybody want to jump in with a comment or a concern before we get too deep into this?

>> I I just want I want to say that I really appreciate his tone compared to other people who I've seen. I won't name name, but there's there's quite a combative and angry tone. Um, but I really really appreciated Steve Greg's tone and his honesty. So, he sounds like a great guy.

>> I mean, I I think he'd be a lot of fun to hang out with and sit around and discuss theology. And I mean, I he's a kind of guy. I would like to know his life story more. I mean, he just seemed very likable and I would I would agree with that.

>> Anybody else want to jump in here?

>> Yeah, I Well, just to comment, I'm a actually a big fan of Steve Greg. Um, I've been listening to him for years and I will say, I mean, I I agree with Steve on on a lot of things and I've learned a lot of things from him. Um, one of the one of the things that kind of struck me about this particular podcast that we're listening to or or responding to is um is Braxton I know has admittedly, you know, said that he looks up to Steve and considers him to be a mentor and and Riley. So, and so I think part of the part of this whole episode is, you know, this is a hot topic. Let's discuss it. Well, who better than the one who's, you know, who I looked up to and and have learned the most from the Bible. And so, I I think that's kind of where this episode maybe taken off. Um, otherwise, it's, you know, it's kind of odd to kind of see them dedicate an episode to atonement and then not have someone who's wellstudied in atonement come on to discuss it. I think that was uh interesting. But I, you know, when you look at the backstory and and you know, the influence that Steve Greg has had on Braxton, I think it makes sense. And I'm a big fan of of Braxton and and uh Pritchette. I love those guys. I love their podcast. I know I know all you are, too. So, um, good guys.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I I would echo all of that.

>> It's my first exposure to Trinity Radio, but certainly not my first exposure to Steve Greg. As a matter of fact, I've spoken with Steve Greg in person on a number of occasions and he actually is a very splendid person. Let me give you an anecdote that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. In 2017, I got invited to a house party at which Steve was speaking. So, when I went into the house, I met Steve. I shook his hand. I said, "Hi, I'm Paul." I handed him an envelope with some gas money in it. I said, "Love your work. This is for your personal use. Then I sat down near the back. Didn't say another word for the rest of the night. In other words, I did nothing to stand out from the crowd. I did nothing to uh be memorable. Yet, he came back to town a year later and he came across the room and shook my hand and called me by name. He said, "Hi, Paul." So he had met me once a year prior and he remembered my name. That I think is indicative of a real pastor's heart even though he is not himself a pastor. So I think he's a splendid fellow and I have regrettably some really diametrically opposed positions to him on penal substitutionary atonement which we abbreviate PSA. He was simply not the right person to bring on for that discussion. I think he's great on a lot of other topics. He's extremely weak on this one. And in fact, he is massively inconsistent. Later in our discussion, I'm hoping that I can quote from his book here. It's a book on hell. The thesis of this book is that eternal conscious torment is not the biblical position. I was extremely fond of this book. I thought it was extremely wellargued. So even though while I was reading the book I was delighted with its reputation of ECT, eternal conscious torment, I was frustrated at the same time because every single argument he uses against ECT can be marshaled with very little modification against PSA. But that just doesn't seem to register with him and it was a source of frustration. And with that, gentlemen, I'll turn it back to you.

>> Yeah, thank you for that, Paul. Anyone else have any any word that they would like to add before we jump into this?

>> I'll just comment that uh I thought he was quite gracious and like you you said he admitted that he was no expert. Although I will say he obviously knew more than what I would call any random pastor out there. He was aware that there are different atonement models and and things like that, which speaks better of him than probably 95% of pastors who are out there. probably not even aware that there are different models. So, uh yes, we can pick it pick what he said apart, but overall I thought for someone who had not really studied on the topic, he knew more than like I say most average pastors would have known.

>> Well, I think this might be the time for me to jump in with a quote. I want to piggyback on something that Kevin just spoke of and that is we are very glad, very heartened that Steve Greg acknowledged that there are other models than PSA because certain other people in this arena act like PSA is simply the gospel and anything else is rank heresy. Let me read what Steve Greg writes on page 15 of his book on hell. This is a short quote and he's talking about eternal conscious torment ect and its defenders. He writes quote in the nature of the case it seems unavoidable that a tradition that has dominated the field without significant challenges for centuries might feel attacked quote unquote when arguments for alternative viewpoints suddenly receive attention. In fact, it is not difficult to document from the literature that many traditional authors seem offended even at the suggestion that alternative views on the subject may be viable and have always existed among bibleelving Christians. End quote. He's talking about ect at that point, but he could just as easily be talking about PSA.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. There's there's there's some inconsistency in the way that these different doctrines are approached and handled. Um and you know, to be fair, we can all have our own biases and blind spots and and whatnot. But I think I think that's a good point. A lot of people are saying, "Wait a minute, are we talking about ECT or PSA?" Well, we're talking about the underlying hermeneutic in which both of these doctrines are treated differently. There's not a consistent application there. So, and uh you need to every people in the side chat are saying hello to your cat by the way there, Paul. What was what was your cat's name again?

>> Mrs. Mo.

>> Okay. Where does that come from?

>> It comes from the movie Chinatown. It was a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Fay Dunaway. Fay Dunaway's character is named Mrs. Moy.

>> Got it. All right. Um, so with that, what I'd like to do is jump over to a claim that he makes around the 27 minute mark, I think is where it is. Um, and and see what your guys uh your thoughts are on this particular claim and um we can discuss as as warranted certain things.

Now, in doing so, I've always found that almost all of these atonement theories have biblical basis. And I've when people say, "Well, which view do you hold?" Or they say, "This one's true, not that true." I think, why does that be one or the other? I mean, can't there be elements of all of it? Seems like there are. Seems like if we're going to decide that one view of the atonement is the right one and the others are wrong, we're just going to have to decide which view which passage of scripture we're going to ignore because each of these has passages of scripture that use the language of their paradigm. Uh, and I'm thinking and I I told Braxton this before we went on here and and he shared it with you chocolate. First of all, I don't think I need to understand it. I'm I'm a lot like CS Lewis in this respect. I'm not very much like him in a lot of respects. Again, I don't have the the bandwidth in my head that he had, but uh but he I I felt as he did and he said this in mere Christianity in his chapter called the perfect penitent. You know, he said there's various views of the atonement and you don't really have to decide which one is true because he says for for many millennia people ate food and were nourished by it without having a clue of why it nourished them. And I'm muted, of course.

I think uh I think that's an interesting statement here is that he's he's arguing that you don't have to necessarily understand you just have to accept the fact that you're being nourished by these and that they're all essentially compatible. Anybody want to jump in on on that sort of assertion and and why they agree or disagree?

>> Not all not all at once. You guys calm down now. I mean, I know it's early in the morning for Phil, but uh you guys you need to settle down. You're a little too enthusiastic.

>> On a base level, I would kind of agree. It's not like people have to know the technical parameters or whatever of atonement. But the bigger problem is that a wrong teaching or understanding of atonement impugnes God's character and makes him look like a monster. And so that's our biggest at least I know for me the biggest concern that PSA actually does that when people when you're witnessing to an adult who is really seriously considering Christianity for the first time. they didn't grow up with it. Well, they hear something quite a bit different than those of us who grew up with it are hearing. And so that and often times they will reject the message because it does not make sense on multiple levels and it's even can be depending how it's explained it can actually be repulsive. And so the wrong view attacks God's character and is actually counterproductive. So that's where the bigger problem to me is lays.

>> Fully agree. In fact, that'll give me a chance to read some more quotations from Steve's book on hell. We talked about how this is contrary to the character of God. In fact, impugning the character of God. Steve Greg says the same thing about ect. This is from page Roman numeral 9. He writes, "In dealing with his enemies who hate and curse him, does God behave otherwise than he has instructed us to be to do toward ours?" End quote. In other words, we would expect God to be the mo the model of morality, the model of goodness. In fact, this is what it says in First Peter. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." Yet in PSA, we're told that God cannot forgive. He has to punish. We are told despite the fact that Ephesians 4:32 says, "And be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." But that doesn't apply to God apparently. And we turn to page 49 of the same book and he writes this quote. The traditional view of the nature of hell does not cohhere well with the character of God disclosed in the gospels. The two quotations I gave are arguments that he musters to refute ect with almost no modification. Those same arguments can be mustered to refute PSA because eCT and PSA both present an evil immoral god and that god has to be rejected. Yet it is just not dawning on Steve Greg that the very arguments he uses for ect undermine PSA which he still believes in. And by the way, when Kevin referred to uh speaking to people about PSA and repelling them with that, that was my exact experience. That's how I got on the path to rejecting PSA. Back, if we go back into the wayback machine, spin the dial about 31 years, we find a much younger version of me sitting in the cafeteria of the aerospace company where I'm working. I'm talking to my beautiful young colleague Aaron. She's a female engineer and she has just revealed to me that she's only nominally Christian. At that point in my life, I was a wildly enthusiastic Christian apologist, Protestant apologist. And so I went to work on her proving quote unquote that Christ rose from the dead. I had to bring together every argument that I knew of from Gary Habbermass, William Lane Craig at Al, string them together and present them to her. At the end of it, she said, "Fine and dandy, but why did Christ have to die in the first place?" And at that point, I gave her the gospel according to Josh McDow. That is to say, Jesus is our asbesto suit against the white hot wrath of God. And then I went into more detail. I said that our sin has infinitely offended God because he is an infinite being and the gravity of a sin depends on the status of the one offended. But God having aspects of mercy as well as aspects of justice determined that he would punish his innocent son Christ in ourstead. And when he punishes and kills Christ, he can now be freed up in love to forgive us. When I said that, Aaron's eyes glazed over and she thought for a moment. And when she refocused her eyes, she asked me, "So, in order to satisfy his sense of justice, God has to commit an injustice." Well, at that point, I was just a young apologist. My apologetics approach was simply to plagiarize and parrot everything that I heard coming out of Walter Martin or Josh McDow or other apologists like that. I wasn't prepared for that answer or that particular question and objection. The reason I wasn't prepared is because those guys had never dealt with that. The reason they had never dealt with it is because that was 1995. That was 31 years ago when PSA was still the assumed position of everyone in Protestantism. Nobody on that side of the argument can get away with that assumption anymore. There are simply too many people online on the video sharing platforms lining up to take shots at PSA. But what Aaron said to me in 1995 stuck with me. And years later, I kept kicking the can down the road. I started looking into it for myself and I came to the conclusion that PSA was false. But exactly as Kevin has said, this theory is repulsive and if you say it to anyone who has not grown up with it, the person is repelled thereby. In other words, it's a stumbling block in front of the cross of Christ.

One of the one of the analogies that I use that I think helps people understand the the contradictions between certain models is the uh the payday candy bar. So in the first thousand years of the church, they were operating on this idea of God's justice being uh restorative that it was about healing, rescue. It's not to deny that there's wrath. It's not to deny that there's judgment. Um, but that's for those that reject his healing and and restoration. And so, uh, these later models that are based on anal really have to deal more with this idea that that it would be unjust for God to do what the first thousand years of the church assumed. And so this analogy here I think helps crystallize why at least in my mind anom satisfaction theory and uh PSA are not compatible with these other redemptive models because a lot of times you'll hear people say well I think they're all compatible and they're using the same sort of language but really I think one of the things that that Steve didn't seem to to understand here is that we can use the same vocabulary set with completely different definitions and so those definitions are going to impact how we understand that particular term and so I think the underlying motivations are completely different even if we're using the same terms so or the same data set so this analogy hopefully will help so I I show up Phil's in town Phil's visiting me from you know all the way across the world and uh he was he he had a long flight and uh and I greet him with a payday candy bar and I go hey I knew you were traveling uh you're going to be hungry. You know, you you're taking a a a cheap economy flight because uh you know, you're thrifty and they didn't give you they didn't give you any snacks on the the flight and I was worried that you were going to be hungry and and I know you you know, if you're like me, you got blood sugar issues. So, uh so I got you this candy bar as I was thinking about you. Phil would say, "Yeah, thanks, Warren. That was really thoughtful. That was kind like uh goodness, like you you care about me. Like, wow, that's that's so that's so nice. little little little gift of of a little thoughtful gift, but just change the motivations a little bit. And uh secretly, I want I want Phil to die and I know he has a peanut allergy and and I I tell Phil, "Hey, I was at the store. I knew you're coming into town. I got you this peanut candy bar and I was thinking about you and I got it because I want you to go into anaphylactic shock and die." Well, the only difference is my motivation. I still got you the candy bar. What's the big deal? The data set's still the same. It's just my motivations are different. So in one set of motivations, I'm thinking of how I can help Phil. I'm thinking of what I can do to bless Phil, what I can do to help him where he is. And in the other data set, I'm looking to destroy. I'm looking to to kill. And these are not complimentary motivations. And so the motivation of Anselmian atonement theory is diametrically opposed to the motivations of the first thousand years. Because even as Ansom argued in in his worldview as a medieval, you know, feudal system, it would be unjust for God to do what scripture in the early church said he did, and that is freely pardon the repentant. And so I think that's one of the underlying problems here is that when you say that they're all compatible, you're failing to recognize there's competing motivations that are not compatible and that we may be using the same terms or appealing to the same scriptural references, but we may be reading in different definitions and motivations than the authors and the early church understood. So does anybody want to weigh in on that?

>> just say that the they're all theories and I think that comes out early in the video that we're responding to um that it's just a in a sense some way to explain what is clear in the Bible um is the what happened, but what isn't clear is like the how or the the why so much. And that's why all these atonement theories have popped up some earlier than others, but they're they're still theories. They're not um you know, not accepted um factual doctrinal statements. Um, so we're still you know, we're still um talking about them as theories just in a sense to try and understand the how.

>> Yeah, that's an important point to stress, Phil, because these are theories. The Bible is the data and it is the responsibility of of systematic theology to interpret that data. So when Steve says he doesn't know, he doesn't care to know, he's simply failing to construe the data, which is our responsibility. As far as these theories go, when we determine which theory or combination of theories is right, we have to do inference to the best explanation. This is a requirement of systematic theology. We have to account for all of the data. So we have some data saying that Jesus is a new atom. So whatever theory or combination of theories we have has to account for that. It says that Jesus is a quote unquote ransom. That has to be dealt with. It says a number of things. So Steve Greg has said, "Yeah, we can save the appearances of all kinds of different verses. Well, you have to do more than save the appearances. If you save the appearances of some kind of ransom theory, but then fail to explain the new covenant idea that is associated with the death of Christ or the new Adam uh data set which is associated with the work of Christ, then you have not inferred to the best explanation. And the most glaring instance of the atonement school failing to infer to the best explanation is when we come to the data set of God's character. It says, "Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil." That's Isaiah 5:20. Yet the atonement school tells us that God looks upon the injustice of killing an innocent man knowingly and exonerating the guilty and then declares that to be good and just which is violating Isaiah 5:20. We have a data set that tells us that God will not justify the wicked nor exonerate or God will not condemn the just nor exonerate the the innocent nor exonerate the guilty. For example, Proverbs 17:15, "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemnth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord." These verses simply stand out like sore thumbs and we have to ignore them. We have to do some kind of special pleading and say, "Oh, but God can do this." God doesn't violate his own character. And the character of God is a data set that cannot be ignored when we're judging between these theories. And PSA blatantly violates the character of God. Therefore, it is a false theory and should be rejected.

>> Um,

>> oh, go ahead, Kevin.

>> Oh, well, I like what Warren said that we're maybe using the same words, but we're giving them completely different definitions. If if you force atonement through a frame or a narrative of infinite justice and infinite righteousness, infinite sin, you end up with a scenario where God is like chained or handcuffed to a scale called infinite justice. And his infinite perfection demands an infinitely perfect balance. But our infinite sins prevent him from balancing the scale and making him frustrated and wrathful. So the only solution we are told is to apply an infinite payment of infinite righteousness from an infinite person, his only son. However, this idea of infinities does not exist in the Bible. It's a it's a foreign madeup problem that arises from reading the abstract metaphysical framework. And nowhere in the Bible do we ever read of this imagined infinite justice problem. It only existed in the minds of the reformers in the 1500s. This is why when you try to get the Bible to answer questions based on this metaphysical narrative, of course, you're going to get weird tangled answers that make no rational sense in the normal world. What we find in the Bible instead of metaphysics are two primary emphasis. One is about cleansing and the other one is about relationships. Uh personally I focus more on the relationship side and this guy is presented as a good father who has a house full of mostly rebellious children. He constantly tells them that if they'll humble themselves, leave their evil ways and establish a positive relationship with him, they'll be forgiven. That just like we read in 2 Chronicles 7:14 or Isaiah 55:7. But so in a nutshell, that's what atonement is in the Bible. The of course the immediate question people ask is well if God can just forgive then why did Jesus die and there are multiple reasons in the Bible for that but those are usually just ignored. So if if we're coming to the Bible with different narratives which give different definitions to the terms then we're going to end up with a scrambled mess. And that's what we are seeing. And it's interesting that the video that we're discussing has as its title untangling atonement theory confusion. And it ends up demonstrating the confusion because we're dealing with two competing uh narratives that use the same data set but with completely different parameters. And that's where the clash is found. I I believe

>> yeah I'll I'll say a few comments too. Um so I think Kevin point out some important things and um one one of the big things in in my mind is when you're talking about atonement um atonement is not something in the scripture that is at least from what I'm seeing it's not multiaceted. So it's not they'll describe it as a diamond with you know multiacets and a jewel that's uh you know multi-dimensional. I mean, in scripture, atonement is a specific thing and it has a specific role. And um I think when you when you're a penal substitutionary proponent like Steve, you'll kind of find that language where um because because the penal substitutionary toonement model has lots of problems and they kind of see and feel those problems a little bit. And so I think a lot of them end up wanting to say well it's it's multiaceted. There's a lot of things that are true uh a lot of theories that are true all at the same time. But I mean, when you listen to them, you talk about confusion. Um, you know, they kind of go through the atonement theories and they kind of say they all have biblical basis and they're all true, but they're not all how atonement works and even they admit that. So, like for example, when they're talking about Christ is victor, they all agree that Christ is victorious over the powers of evil. But they also admitted in their podcast that it's not a mechanism of atonement. It's not a way in which Christ cleanses the sinners. It's not um, you know, he they just don't understand how that's necessarily um, you know, a theory of atonement per se. They do the same thing about the governmental theory. Uh how that's not you know necessarily a mechanism of atonement. They they did the same thing about ransom theory. They talked about ransom yet they conclude that that's not you know necessarily it's got all kinds of problems and it's it's not an adequate uh, you know, way in which Christ atones for our sins. And so I think what they want to do is they want to really say is well penal substitution is the actual mechanism of atonement. Um, but we're we're just, you know, not going to address those problems and we're just going to say all these other atonement theories are are partially true, you know, and I think that's just um pouring into the confusion around the atonement debate. I think it's important to understand what atonement is, what does it accomplish? When the Bible um authors use atonement language, what are they referring to? What words are they using? and what do those words mean? And you got to get down to to understanding the actual biblical mechanism of atonement. And the real quick, the other thing I will say just to kind of bounce off what Paul was talking about is one of one of the dangerous things about penal substitution is is it is conflated with the gospel. And so when you hold the penal substitution, you're not just holding to this theory of atonement. What you're doing is you're saying that penal substitution is the gospel. And and that's big confusion because now you've gone from this is just a theory of how we think, you know, Christ may have saved us from our sin. You're going from that to no, this is this is the gospel. And if you reject it, if you don't accept it, then you're not a Christian. And that's when it gets dangerous. And that's when it gets hard for Christians, especially Protestants, to um to really dive deep and and consider um what atonement really means because they're afraid that if they're if they reject penal substitution, you know, they're rejecting the faith. So, that's a problem.

>> Yeah, I really appreciate you noting that because fear often prevents us from exploring these questions to find what the Bible actually says and what God has revealed in scripture because we're afraid, well, if I question, then I'm dishonoring God. But if the thing that's provoking you to question is not in keeping with God and his self-revelation in scripture and in the the person and work of Christ, then you're not dishonoring him to say, "Hey, there's this apparent contradiction. I'm feeling this concern." I mean, God gave us uh our we have God-given faculties and we have a a thumbrint of God on our heart. And so it doesn't mean we're to be driven by our emotions or that we're to be driven by uh our conscience, but those are God-given gifts. And when we see those coming into conflict with something, we need to explore why that tension exists. Maybe we need to study more. Maybe the answer is there that we just don't fully understand it. Or maybe the thing that's causing that is out of step with what God has said. and that that's a indicator, you know, that's your check engine light so that we can go in there and and dig deeper. But I think that fear prevents people and you're right, they they associate it with the gospel. So to to challenge this presentation of of God and and who who he is in his character and in his work that arose like I said a thousand or 1500 years after Christ, they they go, "Well, I can't question that because I would be questioning the actual individ and and what he did for me." And they they can't separate God from a doctrine about God. And that causes this issue. And so what they end up doing and our churches and the the voices online and our even our peer groups often well-intended will encourage us to live in a state of um cognitive dissonance or suppressing those moral intuitions. And so we live a we live this life of anxiety where we're constantly in fear and ignorance and we don't really explore this and we never get a solution. And I think ultimately it's motivated by a fear. And it's not a healthy fear. It's a fear that keeps you from really drawing closer to God and knowing his heart and knowing who he is and and why he's done the things that he's done. And I don't think that's healthy at all.

>> Yeah. And and one more point I I'll make is um to to kind of go along with what Steve's already said later in the in the episode, he talks about how he gives the analogy of, you know, for for centuries, we've been eating food and nourishing our bodies and had no idea how the nourishment works and how the food actually, you know, allows us to live and and yet we we still are nourished by it. So we don't have to understand it in order to be nourished by it. Um, and I I will say that's true. I will say that yes, you you can be in a penal substitution proponent and still be saved by what Jesus did for you to to save you from your sins. And and you cannot understand atonement. The problem is though and what I would argue what I argue in my book is um is atonement has a a purpose and and the mechanism of atonement in is important in understanding that purpose. And so um if you if you don't understand if you think uh well what God did was he uh took away our punishment so that we can go to heaven. Well, that's a different story than the story of no what what God did is he sent his son so that we can be cleansed of our sin so the spirit can dwell inside of us so that the kingdom of God can spread across the earth. I mean that's a different story. And so um when you look at the purpose of the new covenant in Christ and and that how we're supposed to bring heaven to earth and that's all done through atonement. Um, that's important, I think, because if you change the story, then you're going to you're going to miss the point of it. And and so that's that's one thing I will say why yes, you don't have to understand the the the the mechanism. That's that's true, but it's it's still important to understand the mechanism.

>> Yeah. Well, well said. We have a a couple of uh things I want to address real quickly. We had um uh what is this? A super sticker. Thank you so much for that, Stephanie. Really appreciate that. Um Ben sent in a super chat. I always try to prioritize these. Ben, thank you so much for the the $20 super chat. Now, this is probably for our resident Levitical uh expert. Might have that in the title of his channel name. I I don't know. I don't want to throw you under the bus there. But he says in Leviticus 16:es 21-22 it speaks of the sin of the people being transferred to the goat. In Isaiah 53 it says our sin was laid on Christ. In 2 uh Colossians 5 or 2 Corinthians uh 5:21 it says we exchange our sin for his righteousness. Is this double transfer valid?

>> Um, I don't know about double transfer but definitely the language of Jesus bearing sin I think is present in Leviticus 16 and that the idea of the scapegoat carry away sin. Um, but that bearing sin doesn't mean that you become guilty or even that you're punished. um bearing sin like if Jesus is God and Jesus is God then him bearing or carrying sin doesn't contaminate him and mean that he becomes a sinner um so in the sense that the scapegoat bears sin and carries it away um Jesus carry our sin away I think the Bible's pretty pretty clear that he does that he takes our sin away or he uh he throws it as far as east is from uh but doesn't mean that he became contaminated or guilty um or a sinner um yeah.

>> Anyone else want to weigh in on that?

>> I'll I'll piggyback on that. So, um, so Carrie and and we may want to get into this later because Steve actually does what I think is a huge, um, blunder in his remembrance of the whole scapegoat. Uh, you know, Yam Kapor description. I mean, he describes it actually completely wrong in his description, which kind of hints towards his misunderstanding of atonement. But but the the carrying of sin, you know, and he mentions the scapegoat and how the the hands were placed on the goat and the sins were confessed over the goat and then that goat um he says what was killed. Um and and therefore it shows how sins get imputed to the goat and then the goat dies and and suffers the the penalty for that sin which of course is not what Leviticus 16 says at all. Um the the goat that you put the sins on is called the scapegoat. Um and that goat is not killed. that goat did not undergo any like penal substitutionary punishment. Um instead that goat uh what what Hebrew word is naw just means carried uh that sin. And what did he do with the sin? He carried it away from holy ground. He carried away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness. And and that's what carrying or bearing sin meant to um in the Torah. That's what it meant to the Jews. It's what the priests would carry sin. The scapegoat would carry sin. And in any situation in which sin was carried, the purpose was to remove the sin. Um and that's also the the purpose of the the blood atonement was to remove the sin. And so when he says, you know, the the sin was laid upon the goat and then the goat was killed, it's like, dude, man, you are not only are you trying to read PSA into the sacrificial system, which is completely not there. Uh you're you're messing up the sacrificial system. You don't really understand it. And so that was that was even more confusion that, you know, they had. And I was a little uh surprised that Braxton and and uh Pritchette didn't speak up and say, "Hey, I don't think that's quite how it worked." But they didn't say anything either. Which is kind of interesting.

>> Yeah, I I saw Kevin, you were nodding your head there. Anything you want to add to that?

>> Um, I yeah I picture the goat is carrying away the sin as a s symb olic um it's a word picture we call it in on a society's level because that was the day of atonement when all the people were gathered together. It was part of the ceremony of this is what sin needs to be done in our society is to get it out. We do not want sin in our society. And of course that applies on a personal level as well. And that yes the actual goat that was put to death that

was for the blood part in the uh temple, but the no sin was applied to that one. Right now, he does mention the other verse, Isaiah 53, "Our sin was laid on Christ," but, um, that's, uh, that again is a figure of speech. And he mentioned, >> Second, that's mine. Yeah. So maybe somebody else can go ahead and take the next verse. >> Well, I'll take, uh, 2 Corinthians 5:21. That passage reads, "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." If we want to take that in the woodenly literal sense that Jesus is sin, well, that's fine. We've just saved the appearances of one Bible passage. There are other passages that talk about Jesus and sin and say something different. For example, you have 1 Peter 2:2, uh, 2:22, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." You get basically the same passage in 1 John 3:5. So you have two passages that tell you that Christ did no sin. That would seem to contradict the woodenly literal reading of 2 Corinthians 5:21. This has been noticed for centuries. The early church fathers commented on this passage from 2 Corinthians. What they tell us usually is that by sin, it means that Christ took on the damaged human condition and thereby healed it. That's what that would refer to. Okay. Leviticus 16. I'm going to offer a theory that's going to be controversial. It may be unique to me. I don't know if it is or not. But the contents of Leviticus are clearly scrambled. They are not in any kind of order. It is exactly like the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs are not in any kind of semblance of order. When you read a Protestant commentary on the book of Proverbs, the first thing they do is to put things into categories. These are proverbs about marriage. These are proverbs about money. These are proverbs about maintaining silence rather than blabbing your mouth. So on so forth and so forth and so on. You also have a similar phenomenon in the gospels. A guy named Tan decided to write a book called The Diatessaron, in which he harmonized the four gospels, putting them into what appears to be chronological order. The church in Syria was so fond of that book that they threw out the four gospels, retaining the Diatessaron instead. Well, I'm going to tell you, based on things that are written both in Eusebius and in Josephus, the contents of the Pentateuch became scrambled during the Babylonian exile. And when they came back, it had to be pieced back together. The first time I read that theory, you know, maybe a quarter century ago, I objected because I was still fresh out of the apologetics industrial complex. "What? The Bible has no problems. What are you talking? That's liberal." Well, in 2024, I decided I would read through the book of Leviticus every week for 30 weeks. So, I read it 30 times in 2024. By the end of reading through Leviticus 30 times, there was no conclusion I could come to except that those early writers were right. It is completely out of order. And I spent a long time putting it back into what appears to be some kind of semblance of order back in 2024. One of the few times in the book of Exodus or the book of Leviticus that we get any kind of time cue that tells you when something occurred chronologically is at the beginning of Leviticus 16, the scapegoat chapter. This is what it reads. This is verse one of chapter 16. "And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the Lord and died." That's a reference to that passage where Nadab and Abihu are excited when they see the fire come out of the tabernacle. They themselves rush in with their censers and are burned to a crisp. Now, what this tells me is these two goats probably have something to do with the with the time cue that is referenced at the beginning of the chapter. You have Nadab and Abihu, and then you have two sons of Aaron who obeyed and didn't get killed. That was Ithamar and Eleazar. It's entirely possible that Ithamar and Eleazar represent the scapegoat, whereas Nadab and Abihu are the goat that gets killed. If you'd like, you could possibly switch that as well, so that Nadab and Abihu would be the scapegoat and Eleazar and Ithamar become the sacrificial goat. What's very noteworthy is that in 586 BC, going back to this idea of the exile, the Ark of the Covenant is either destroyed or goes permanently missing in action. So by the time you get to Christ, there has not been an Ark of the Covenant for nearly 600 years. That means there has been no proper Day of Atonement celebrated for 600 years now. If this is such an important ceremony to the history of the Judeaic race and to the history of Christianity, why did God make it impossible rightly to celebrate it for 600 years? Indeed, when you read books by experts on the Second Temple, like a guy named Adarshaim, he will tell you that in the Second Temple period, when the priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrificial animals, he was slinging that blood onto the floor because there was no Ark of the Covenant in there. And in my opinion, this is why we have the passage in Hebrews that says that the body of Christ is the way through the veil, i.e., the way through the veil that covers the Holy of Holies. Because Jesus, as it says in Romans 6:23 and also in the book of Hebrews, and if you want to, this is controversial, but I'll say it, also in 1 John 2:2 and 1 John 4:4:10, Jesus is the mercy seat. He's the real deal. He is the real Ark of the Covenant that goes into that empty Holy of Holies. That's my two cents. I'll turn it back over to you, gentlemen.

>> Yeah. One thing I wanted to note too, in regarding this idea of things being transferred or or born, like Jesus bore sin, is, uh, if you look at, uh, Matthew 8:17, this is before the crucifixion. We're told that Jesus bore our sickness, and it didn't mean that he became sick, and it doesn't mean that he suffered sickness, but it means that he had healed it. He had carried it away. And so when we're talking about Jesus bearing sin in these sorts of terms, it, it does mean a carrying away, a relief, a, um, a casting away. And, uh, you'd mentioned something that also brought to mind, uh, 1 Corinthians 12:3, because PSA is, is, um, I think what it's accurately described. It says that, uh, that the Father cursed Jesus on the cross, that Jesus became a literal curse. And people don't understand how Galatians 3:13 is working. But 1 Corinthians 12:3 is very clear. And it says, "I want to, uh, let me see if I can find the NASB so that we can all have like a, a common translation." It says, "Therefore, I make known to you, no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is a cursed or in some languages, anathema." So, we don't say that Jesus, uh, was cursed by God if we're speaking by the Spirit. So, in Galatians 3:13, it's not saying that God cursed Him. It's talking about Him, uh, assuming mortality, carrying that away, healing it, and that's the whole problem that He came to solve was sin, death, and, and separation. But I think that's a really good question, and you can see these are deep and in-depth theological questions and concerns that have a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. Um, anybody want to speak on that before I move to the next one?

>> Uh, just real quick, Warren, because we touched on two of those three verses. Um, but Isaiah 53:6, um, was also asked about, and this is actually one that, uh, Steve Gregg mentions. He mentions two verses to, to support penal substitution, and this is one of them. Um, and it's, you know, for the ESV, for example, it says, "God, uh, laid on Christ the iniquity of us all." And so, um, so when you look at that, uh, the word "laid on" is actually, um, the word paga. It just, it's a Hebrew word that, um, doesn't mean to carry. Uh, it means, um, basically the, the word for imputation in Hebrew is going to be a different word, chashab. Uh, you see it in Leviticus 17:4, for example. Um, but paga is a word that means to make intercession. Um, and for example, if you just go down a few verses in Isaiah 53 to verse 12, uh, the same word is used, paga, and it's interpreted, you know, correctly as, um, as intercession. And so, what, what we're doing is we're taking a verse that says, um, that that Christ has is interceding for the iniquity of us all, and we're taking that to mean sin imputation. And so, I just want to point that out because that is one of his verses that he used to, um, to support his view. And it, and it actually doesn't even support his view. It, it's just, you, you do have to go to the Hebrew and look at kind of the original meaning and, and, and then, you know, it's, it's not overly obvious when you're reading some of these English translations. So.

>> If I may, I'd like to throw in two more cents. When we're referring to Isaiah 53:6, "All all we as sheep have gone astray. Everyone has gone astray in his way, and the Lord gave Him up for our sins." That is quoted in the New Testament in 1 Peter 2:25, and that's at the end of a long string of quotations from Isaiah 53 that is all set in the context of the moral exemplar model. It begins at 1 Peter 2:21, which reads, "For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow His steps." Then in the next verse, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." That's another Isaiah 53 quote. All of these quotes in Isaiah 53, excuse me, in 1st Peter 2:21-2 are all set in the context of a moral exemplar model. And then the passage reads, "But you know, ye, as ye have returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. All we like sheep have gone astray. It, but now are returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." That's Isaiah 53 quoted in the New Testament. And it's quoted in the context of a moral exemplar model and a pastoral model of Jesus rescuing His sheep like a good pastor.

>> Yeah. And just to piggyback on that, I mean, this is a, this is a really interesting verse. So, 1 Peter, uh, chapter 2, 21, Peter's like, he's, he's going to lay it out right here. He's saying Christ suffered for you so that, and then you're waiting to hear it, right? And, and it's like, this is the perfect place where he could just say, "So that He could be your substitute." Um, or, "So that your sins could finally be punished," you know, or, "So that God's wrath could finally be satisfied." And, and this is, this is the moment, you know? But what does he say? He doesn't say that. He says that Christ suffered for you so that you would follow in His footsteps. It's like, that, that's kind of a, a little bit of a mic drop moment for penal substitution. It's kind of like, uh, that would have been it. Um, but, you know, that there's, yeah, there there becomes a question, you know, with penal substitution as to, okay, well, if there is a different way in which Christ cleanses us of sin, and it's not through punishing the sin, um, through torturing an innocent person, that, that's not the mechanism, well, then why did Christ have to die? And I think that's an extremely important question, and one that everyone who is not holy in the penal substitution should be able to answer. And I think this is a very key verse. It's like, well, He suffered for you, um, because that's what He wants you to do. You know, He, He was crucified because He wants you to carry your cross. Um, and that, and He did this so that you would follow in His footsteps. Um, so it's not, "He died so that I wouldn't have to suffer this." He died because He wants you to follow Him in crucifixion. Um, and that's that's a theme that is undeniably all around the New Testament. I mean, it's basically in every book. Um, but, but Paul talks about it over and over again. It's all over the Gospels. Christ said, He said, "You cannot be my disciple if you do not carry your cross." And so,

>> That's a great point. Um, Andrew, who who wrote Lamb of the Free and has been of some controversy as of late as people are all upset that PSA is being challenged.

>> Uh, you know, he, he harped on that quite a bit and he said, "Christ died ahead of you, not instead of you." And, um, you know, he's showing us the way. And, uh, and I think a lot of these, um, anomian models kind of miss out on that.

>> Warren, you've got to pronounce the name like William Lane Craig says it, Rihanna. But getting back to what Roser said, we all have to know why Christ had to die.

>> If I can plug the book of our fellow panelist Kevin George, there's an entire appendix in here. I believe it's appendix A that gives anywhere from 15 to 16 reasons with Bible texts to substantiate them showing why Christ had to die. Not a single one of those reasons was PSA.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. You, you'll never find that as a reason. And, and it's not, it's not, um, a subtle thing. I mean, when you, when you read about the crucifixion, you'll, you'll never see, uh, "Jesus was satisfying wrath" language. You'll never see "Jesus was being punished" language. It's just, it's just not there. And when you hear the apostles talk about it, it's the same thing. Jesus, Jesus wasn't crucified, um, as, as a satisfying wrath or as punishment. He was crucified, um, on the cross, and he was a sin offering so that one, your sins could be cleansed. Yes. But two, um, he was showing us the way in which we too have to die to ourselves. We too have to crucify the flesh. Um, and then I'll, I'll just make one quick point. This is a little bit of a side point, but going, going back to Andrew Rera, um, sorry, I can't do it like William Lane Craig, but, um, he, he has an interesting take on the scapegoat that I don't know if any of y'all had had come across, but, um, it was interesting to me because it, it kind of made sense to me, but, but, you know, when you think about the Day of Atonement, you think about how the priest goes into the holy place and, and he cleanses God's sanctuary, uh, with the life of the offer, offering, which is in the blood, and he removes that sin, uh, via the life of the offering. Uh, Rera says, now the next step is, you know, you just swept the sin out of the tabernacle. The next thing is to put it in the dustpan and take it out to the trash. And that's basically what then the scapegoat kind of served was, now that the sins have been removed from the most holy place, uh, let's further remove it and just get it all the way out of the camp. And so, um, I thought that was an interesting take. Um, you know, I'm not, I'm not 100% on it, but, um, it, it just, it sounded like it, it kind of made sense of the whole, you know, removing sin from from holy sancta, um, kind of process.

>> Yeah. I was also find it interesting about the removing sin and Jesus dying to pay for sin. I often challenge people on the internet. Okay, please give me the list of verses that say that Jesus literally paid for sin. I, I can't find them. And it's always silence. But it's, it's interesting because at the Martin Luther, the big deal was his problem with indulgences, and yet PSA has Jesus being the ultimate cosmic indulgence payment for sin. And so it's still an going back to the topic, the model of indulgences that supposedly we got away from. And so interesting, uh, it's just an interesting tidbit of history that, uh, all this started right at that same time. And, um, of course, you have to get into metaphysical concepts to try to make it all supposedly make sense, which actually just confuses it. But anyway, that I just thought I'd throw that in there.

>> Phil, I saw you come off mute a couple times. You want to say something?

>> Yeah. Um, as I was researching my book, um, in the ancient Near East, so like ancient Babylonian and Mesopotamian, Mesopotamian, it's a hard word, Akkadian texts show the scapegoat ritual. It wasn't unique to Jews or the Hebrew Bible. Um, there are like plenty, I don't know how many, but maybe a dozen records of other rituals where there's either one or two animals, but the, the common theme is that some illness or impurity or spirit or something is transferred to the animal, and then the animal is sent out alive. So, there's one where they, they kiss a frog, and if someone's sick, they kiss a frog, and then they let the frog go back into into the marshes or the swamp, and that's supposed to take the sickness with it. Um, there's other ones where they need to cleanse the, cleanse the room for a king or a queen to get married, and so they place all the impurity, any spirits on the goat, and they send the goat out. So, it's the same kind of thing, like some impurity is placed on an animal, the animal's sent out, it's not killed, and it's the idea is that it's taking it out into the wilderness or back into the, the swamp area where it from, and that, that's exactly what we see in the Bible. It's also in Leviticus 14, where there's another ritual of the two birds where, um, the house is atoned for or cleansed, um, and all the impurity of the house is placed on one bird, and then it's released to fly out over an open field. Um, and so when you start saying that the animal had to die or was being punished, you're kind of reading the Bible in a vacuum. You have to read it within its ancient context. And for the Bible to suddenly come along and say, "No, the animal was being punished and had to die" is just not understanding that ancient ritual of a scapegoat like at all.

>> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. We got one more super. I always try to prioritize these because it's really appreciated. This comes in from Tommy. Thank you for that. That is a substantial super. Thank you so much. He says, "Thoughtful and gracious and thorough." Thank you. Could you comment on how many conflate physical death and second death in the context of atonement? We all sin and all die. So, isn't Paul clear about contrasting the wages of sin, physical death, and the gift of eternal life?

>> Yeah, I wanted to jump in on that as well because I, that, that's the, the bottom line of where PSA, you have to say that Jesus experienced something that we not, cuz otherwise, what did He do instead of us? So, you, if Jesus experienced physical death, and if you want to say that that's a punishment for sin, I think that's fine. He experienced the consequences of sin, which is death, but we will also experience that. But as soon as you say Jesus experienced something instead of me, I, I think you have to step outside the Bible. As soon as you say that He experienced, uh, spiritual death or a punishment or an eternal level of punishment, you have to step outside what the, what the Bible says.

>> Yeah. I'll, I'll also comment just cuz I think this is related to, uh, a very important point in penal substitutionary apologetics. So, um, when you're having a discussion on atonement and you're talking with someone who holds to penal substitution, inevitably this will be the main or a main defense of PSA, which is the following. Um, "The wages of sin is death. Uh, Christ died. Therefore, Christ suffered the wages of sin." Now, wages, they would interpret to mean punishment. Uh, but that's literally their defense is, um, "Well, uh, the punishment for sin is you die. Um, Christ died. So, if you put two and two together, you get six." And therefore, you know, Christ was punished for sin. But obviously, that's a non sequitur. And it's very important to point out cuz for some reason people don't recognize this. And, um, I use this analogy just to kind of point it out in my book. I said, "The consequences for smoking, uh, is bad health. All right? Uh, my dad has bad health. Uh, therefore, my dad is suffering the consequences of smoking." I mean, it just makes no sense, right? My dad doesn't smoke. Um, it's a non sequitur argument, and it's the main one of the main arguments for penal substitution. So, we need to kind of like realize that Paul is not, um, when he says, "The wages of sin is death," that is another key spot where he could have said, you know, he could have laid all this out, but, but he's saying the consequences of sin is death. It leads to death. It's the wage. It's something that, um, you know, it, it becomes your slave master and it, it, it drives you to death, and it's, and it's different. It's not the penal substitution language. And I, and I just think it's important that that people realize that.

>> Well said. Thank you, gentlemen. And thank you, Tommy, once again for that super. That was very, very kind and appreciate the question.

>> Yeah, I really like, uh, what we just heard there. I think the word consequence is an excellent way of understanding this. So, when it says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." This is Romans 6:23, I believe it is. What we could understand that to mean is the consequences of sin is death. And the reason why that would be a more desirable way to interpret that passage than to understand it to mean that God has to kill you if you sin is found in the philosophy of religion subscribed to by most of the people in the atonement school. Classical theism is widely accepted in evangelicalism. Classical theism teaches us, coming from Thomas Aquinas, that God is causally impassive. God cannot be caused to do anything. God is an unmoved mover. Therefore, if your sin causes Him to have to kill you, then God is now contingent and He is no longer causally impassive. This is a major thing for them because if you go to a school like Phoenix Seminary, you're going to have one professor named Steve Dubie, who wrote a book called Jesus and the God of Classical Theism, who will tell you God is immutable. God is impassible. God is causally impassive. But at the same school, when you go to your systematic theology class, you're now taught by a famous gentleman named Wayne Grudem. And Wayne Grudem, in his very long chapter on penal substitutionary atonement in his book on systematic theology, says things that imply the exact opposite of all of those cherished things in classical theism. So, which is it? Are the atonement school going to be classical theists, or are they simply going to jettison it for the sake of systematic consistency because they don't have systematic consistency? And I thought, um, I thought the idea of, yeah, my, my, if you smoke, you will have bad health. My father has bad health, therefore my father is suffering from having smoked. But wait, he doesn't smoke. Yeah, because what the atonement school has done there is known as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. It's a logical fallacy, and it's, it's just bad argumentation. So, uh, I, yeah, that's really important point to stress, and thanks for bringing bringing that up. And we, we've got one more super here. I'd like to hit while we can. Um, this comes from refining exegesis. Thank you for the super. Says, "When reading 'bore our sins,' shouldn't we have both Hebrews 12:3, 'endured such hostility from sinners,' and 13:13, 'bear the disgrace' in mind? Both passages speak of this as our example, not substitute." Anyone want to jump in on that?

>> Well, I would simply say that I agree.

>> Yeah. Yep. Thank you for, thank you for that. Yeah. I mean, I, I, okay. I think I think we agree there, refining, but thank you. Thank you for the super. Um, and I'll leave that up here just for a minute in case anybody wants to reference those verses and, uh, who's watching the program and look into those in a deeper.

>> Yeah. And I will say too, um, you know, this is sort of related to, uh, the 1 Peter chapter 2 passage, um, about Jesus bore our sins on the cross. Um, is when you, when you look at that, um, you run into all kinds of problems when you interpret that verse saying Jesus, um, like all my sins were transferred to Jesus when He was on the cross. Okay. When that's your interpretation, there's all kinds of problems with that. One is, I lived, I'm, I'm living 2,000 years after Jesus was on the cross. When Jesus is on the cross, my sins, one, they don't exist. My guilt doesn't exist. Um, what are you transferring? It, it's just kind of one of those, um, one of those things that when you think about what it is you're saying when you're interpreting the passage, uh, to mean penal substitution, you're saying that your specific sins, and that's what a lot of penal substitutionary proponents believe is that each individual sin that you commit is being transferred to Jesus. I can give you quote after quote about that. That's kind of one of the foundational beliefs is, is this imputation of sin. Um, it's, it's just not what the author had in mind. And, and I think, uh, when you look at what the context is and how Peter is talking to Christians who are enduring hardship, slander, uh, being treated, um, poorly, being beaten by their masters, kind of enduring all kinds of injustice and being persecuted. That's the context. That's who he's talking to. And he's telling them, "Endure that. Carry that." Just like Jesus carried our sins, meaning the sins that we beat Him with, the sins that we murdered Him with, the sins that we crucified Him with, He carried that so that, and He did so without lashing back. He did so without, um, returning in, in slander. And, you know, and, and the Gospels talk about how He could have called angels and just put an end to all of it. But He didn't. He carried it, and He did it out of love, and, and He did it, uh, for our reconciliation to God. So, um, you too need to follow in His footsteps. You too need to carry, um, that persecution and, and do it as Jesus did. And Hebrews talks about this. Uh, Paul even mentions in other places how he carries the marks of Jesus, um, in his body. And, and Hebrews will even go, um, "Have you resisted sin to the point of shedding your blood?" I mean, it's all language geared towards saying that, um, you need to bear this suffering and you need to do it like Jesus did. And so when you insert sin imputation and this kind of weird metaphysical, you know, God, even though your sins and guilt didn't exist, somehow He metaphysically just transferred them onto Jesus's body, um, that one, it doesn't make any sense, and two, that's just not the context of the passage. Yeah, I've, I've seen, and you'll probably have as well, this is where some really weird, uh, time theories will come into play where they'll appeal to Doctor Who or Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, you know, and, and they'll be like, "Oh, well, you know, since God is outside of time, you know, He looked ahead and, and you're like, well, we've left scripture so far at this point." Um, I mean, if you just want to invent things to plug holes in your theological ship, like then there's no, there's no reason to even have this discussion because we're just inventing ad hoc a solution to every issue that is that's presented from the text. Um, but then you, you know, you get into these little rabbit trails. But, uh, I agree with you, Roser. Uh, one thing Chris here says is regarding that 1 Peter 2:12, when it says, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross." Does that mean that sin was being nailed to the cross with Christ? Anybody want to speak to this particular element of that of that passage?

>> I think it's actually 1 Peter 2:24. That might be a typo there. Uh, there is a passage in Colossians around about Colossians 2:14, which tells us that, uh, "He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, nailing it to the cross." So, that's typically used as a solid proof text. The idea that the law is done away with, we're all under grace, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, etc., etc. But I think that the, the question may be pointing at something like that. And again, we would have to go back into something that's controversial. The early church fathers distinguish between two types of Old Testament law. They distinguished between a first legislation, which was what they called the Ten Words or the Ten Commandments, and a second legislation, which was all of the ceremonial ordinances. And the assertion of these early writers is that the second set, the second legislation, was punishment for the golden calf apostasy. Indeed, this is what happens while Moses is up on the mountain getting the first legislation. He comes down and finds that they've made a golden calf, trying to go back to the worship of the gods of Egypt like Apis, Manetho, and Bucus. So then God imposes on them a second legislation, which is, um, the ceremonial ordinances of Leviticus and the end of Exodus. I think that that works because that makes sense of other biblical data. For example, anywhere in the Psalms where he says, uh, "The blessed man meditates on the, the law of God day and night." That's Psalm 1. So, there's apparently something good about the law. But then later on, we're told that it must be bad because Jesus, or because it's called the, um, the handwriting of ordinances which were against us. Well, if you want to account for all of that data, then the Petristic view that there is a first and second legislation works. So, the first legislation is universal and everlasting. That's the Ten Commandments. The second legislation was done as punishment for the golden calf, and that's done away with. It's nailed to the cross, and the handwriting of ordinances against us is blotted out.

>> It's interesting. Thank you so much, Chris, for the, uh, for the super there. Now, we did say that we're going to be responding to Steve Gregg. We got a little bit off here. I wanted to answer those questions. I think that all relates because we're talking about PSA and the broader context of the work of Christ. Um, is there anywhere else that something particularly, uh, stood out in something that Steve Gregg said that we would like to include here because we are coming up at the hour and a half mark, and I want to be judicious of all of your time. Anything that we really think is is important to touch on that we haven't thus far?

>> Well, one thing I wanted to complain about is, uh, in several of his other recordings, he has explicitly named Anselm as the origin of atonement theory. Anselm's dates are 1033 to 1109. That means if Anselm began teaching the atonement the moment he came out of the womb, well, then we didn't get it until 1033, which is, you know, a thousand years after Christ's crucifixion. So, in this particular interview, I don't know if you have that clip, he, he alludes to Anselm being the origin of all this and says, "Well, it, it doesn't matter that there's this big gap in time between Christ and the first teaching of the atonement." That really grated on me because I have listened to, I listen to Steve Gregg's show on the radio on a fairly regular basis. I've also downloaded a lot of the free audio from the Narrow Path website. One of the things that I downloaded was his series refuting Calvinism. And in this series, he likes to say, "Well, Calvinism comes from Augustinianism. And prior to Augustine, nobody in the church taught these things." Indeed, Steve repeats that on a regular basis on his radio show. So apparently Calvinism, one of the weaknesses of Calvinism is that it wasn't taught prior to Augustine. Well, Augustine was born in the 4th century and lived into the 5th century. Penal substitutionary atonement wasn't taught until 1098, which is a much bigger distance in time. Why is he not bothered by that?

>> That's a great, that's a great point. And I think I found the clip you're talking about. I'll, I'll hit play on that real quickly just so we can see it.

>> than those that I've consulted, but I've I've tried to understand how they see the death of Jesus as defeating Satan without some element of one of the later formulations of the atonement being in the picture as well. Uh, you've got then of course around the 11th century, Anselm seems to be one of the first to come up with what's called the satisfaction. Now, the satisfaction

>> Before, before you go on, Steve, let me ask, would you say, Oh, there we go. I was muted again. I just, I was saying, uh, we love Braxton, but the main point there I think was what, uh, Paul was referencing is that Steve did recognize that this came about in the 11th century, um, you know, with, or in the 1100s, a thousand years after.

>> So.

>> Yeah. And I, I think that's an extremely important admission, um, because when you, when you take, and he's, he's admitting, and as a lot of penal substitutionary scholars will, is that systematically, the penal substitution wasn't taught systematically, you know, until the Reformation. And there, there may be hints at it in early Christian writings, um, but, you know, there's, there's no organized, um, formal teaching of penal substitution, which at, at the very least should raise some eyebrows. Now, a lot of Christians will, um, sometimes people do think satisfaction theory and penal substitution are the same thing. Um, I personally do not. I mean, they may, there may be some overlap, but, um, interestingly, uh, Anselm actually rejected penal substitution. Um, I'll give you a quote for example. So he says that, uh, "God the Father did not condemn the innocent to free the guilty, nor put to death the innocent for the guilty." And that's, um, Cur Deus Homo, Book One, Chapter 8. And so, it's interesting to see that Anselm, who some think might be the father of, of some of the foundational beliefs of penal substitution, actually, uh, rejects penal substitution outright, which is fascinating. And then, uh, one thing that I, I do, just in general, want to point out because I think it's important is that Steve Gregg, uh, when he starts and he defines what atonement is, I think that is an extremely important part of the foundation of their confusion. And, and this is kind of my perspective, my view. I know not everyone agrees with this, but, um, when, when he defines atonement, this is what he says: "Atonement is how Christ's death solved the problem of sin and separation from God." Um, and I think that's foundationally wrong. When you talk about atonement, um, atonement is the cleansing of our sin. And the cleansing of our sin is explicit in, in scripture of that of how that takes place. And we are, sin is not cleansed through the death of the offering. It never has been, and it, and it never will be. Uh, when you look at, um, Leviticus, you know, 17:11, it says that the, the nephesh, or the soul, or the life, it's the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have allowed for you to collect it, the life of the flesh on the altar to cover or purge your sins. For it is the blood that, uh, covers and purges your sin by the life. Um, and so when you, when you look at the, the overall understanding of atonement and the explanation of atonement, uh, cleansing of sin occurs through the life of an unblemished offering to God that's acceptable and ascends to God's presence. It is not through the death. It's never stated to be through the death. And I think if that's your understanding from the get-go, you are setting yourself up for all kinds of confusion. Um, and I think that is also a basis of where a lot of the confusion in atonement discussion, uh, takes place. When you look at, for example, 1 John 1:7, it says that, uh, "the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." And so, when you look at, well, how does a, a Jew understand the concept of blood in, um, in cultic language, in priestly priestly language, um, he understands it as referring to the life of the offering. So, when you, when you look at it through that lens, what you see is that it's the life of Jesus, His Son, that cleanses us from all sin. When does that happen? It's, it's upon faith. It's not on the cross. He says explicitly, it's when you walk in the light, when you believe on Jesus, that's when you're cleansed by Him. That's, that's when He removes your sin. It's not, not when He was on the cross. And, and the, the other important thing about that is that it is the blood, or the life of Jesus His Son, that cleanses us from all sin. It doesn't punish our sin. It cleanses our sin. And that's an, an extremely different concept. And so, uh, penal substitution, proponents will read punishment into that concept, but it's not there. When you read about atonement, whether it's Old Testament or New Testament, ubiquitously throughout the whole scriptures, um, it uses cleansing language. It doesn't use punishment language. This is, this is a cleansing process. It's not a, a justice judicial, you know, let's do retribution, uh, process. So, I wanted to point that out. I have other comments, but I think that was important.

>> Yeah. And I, I appreciate you noting that there's a distinction between Anselmian satisfaction and penal substitution. And I, I, I think, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm convinced that they're completely different. Uh, PSA operates on an Anselmian mechanism, but they have, uh, completely different focuses. So, I, uh, I would agree with you there that they are, that they are distinct. Anybody want to add anything to that before I get to the next question here?

>> I just quickly agree with that. I, I wrote a lot in my book about, um, in Leviticus, how it's not the, the death that is doing any work. There was some chat, some comments earlier in about, um, animals having to die on, um, Day of Atonement and the other sacrifices, but death actually contaminated the altar and holy space. So, the high priest wouldn't be in the same room as a dead relative, even, um, because he would contaminate his office and he would contaminate holy space. So, the, the language in Leviticus is really clear and really specific that it's not a dead animal being placed on the altar, it's an offering. So, it's killed away from the altar, and then the lifeblood of that unblemished animal is used to purify the altar. Um, but there's no language of a dead body, corpse, or a carcass being placed on the altar. Um, which is important and, um, and fits like perfectly with that, that ritual conception of what an offering was. So, it's a, it's pleasing aroma to God. It's unblemished, um, and it's not a death being given to God. It's the blood purifies the space, and then God's being given food, basically, and pleasing aroma.

>> Well said. So, I'll, I'll go ahead and move on here. We've got, um, Larry sent in a super. Thank you for that, Larry. Really appreciate you, sir. He says, "Uh, does an analogy of a judge stepping down and paying the bailiff, the legal penalty debt for a repentant speeding offender, one unable to make payment, align with PSA, or some other theory? Or is this just a bad analogy?"

>> It's a bad analogy, and it does indeed align with PSA because PSA deserves bad analogies. All of these courtroom, uh, courtroom illustrations simply don't work because the controlling metaphor of the work of Christ is healing. That would be more suited to a hospital environment than it is to a courtroom. It says in Isaiah, "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes, we are, we are what?"

>> Come on, guys. What's the word? By His stripes, we are

>> Anyone?

>> Yeah.

>> Yep. Yep. Healed. By His stripes, we are healed. Not by His stripes, we are exonerated. How about the most famous passage in the New Testament, John 3:16? If you back up just to verse 14, Jesus compares Himself when speaking to Nicodemus to the serpent that was raised up on the pole in the book of Numbers. The purpose of that serpent was to heal the Hebrews of their snake bites when they had rebelled and been bitten by the snakes. And so it reads in John 3:14, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." And then you get the famous John 3:16. Thus, Christ in the most famous passage in the New Testament says that the purpose of His work is healing. So, how about we use hospital analogies instead of courtroom analogies? Yeah. And, um, another interesting point is when you, when you make atonement about, uh, retribution and, and retributive justice, which I will say is, is another big glaring issue in their discussion, is they would use the word justice when they meant retributive justice. And when you look at justice in scripture, uh, justice is, um, not mainly retribution. It's the justice of God is, is has a lot to do with reconciliation and recreation and making things new and right and good. And it's not just about punishing sin and evil and retribution. So, so that is a big issue in their discussion and just a foundational problem. Um, another interesting point I, I like to point out because I don't think people hammer this enough is that when Jesus was in His ministry, and He says this for example in John 5, I think verse 22, uh, He says that, uh, "Not even the Father judges anyone, but He's given all judgment to the Son." Okay. And so, if, if you want to say that, um, God is, is judging sin on the cross, um, that's a problem because Jesus says, "The Father's not judging anyone, guys. He's given it to me." And, and in Acts, it says that, uh, "the one who's been appointed by God, who's Jesus, as judge of the living and the dead." And did Jesus come to judge sinners? No. He says explicitly, "I have not come, you know, it says, God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world so that the world would be saved through Him." There will be a judgment day. Sin will be, there will be a reckoning, but it's not yet. Um, and so I think that's very important because, because if you're going to twist it and say, "No, uh, the Father is still the judge and He's going to judge, uh, all, all sin on the cross," it's like, well, then why did Jesus say that the Father judges no one and, and He's given, you know, all that authority to me? So,

>> Well said.

>> That analogy. Oh, go ahead.

>> No, no, after, after you, Kevin.

>> Analogy, um, of the judge is not a biblical one. The two biblical ones Steve Gregg mentioned, although he had them a little off, I think. Uh, one was the, um, king who pardoned his servant, uh, who forgave him, and then that servant did not forgive someone else. But again, that there was no payment involved. It was an actual forgiveness as we normally think of forgiveness. The other one was the prodigal son, and again, he gave that story a little bit off. The father and the prodigal son was, uh, constantly ready, like already propitious toward the son, waiting for the son to return. The son, by faith, recognized his situation, and his faith realized and caused him to repent, uh, and returned to the father, who accepted him without payment and gave him a cleansed him by giving him a new robe and so forth. He did not, the father did not demand that someone else, like the older brother, pay for and make up for the wrongs that had been done. So all the biblical analogies show, uh, forgiveness and, uh, kindness in the normal human relational sense, not some weird, uh, analogy that they always have to come up with to try to make sense out of PSA. Can I, while you're speaking, Kevin, I think I don't

know if you've got, um, it's about, uh, hang on, um, 13 minutes 30. If you've got that, I don't know. But he talks about, um, Greg talks about "forgive us our debts," um, and those parables. But have you done work, Kevin, on the word thesis and how it means release or to send away? So the idea of forgiving a debt is, um, to to remove it and to send it away or throw away, um, which which basically means canceling it. Someone else isn't paying it. Um, it's just forgiven and canceled. So the the idea in Leviticus, Jubilee, where all debts are canceled. It's not that someone else pays the debt. It's it's canceled. So if you owed anything, then you're you're free to go. If you're a debt slave, um, and you are working off the debt that you owed, you're free to go. The debt's canceled. Um, so in the in the Greek testament, they use the word forgiveness, um, it's the same, uh, definition of just releasing, sending away, like it's

>> Nope. I think I think I lost you just the tail end of that, uh, Phil, but I I I appreciate you mentioning that and, um,

>> Hey Warren, just real quick, I think what Phil is saying is it is is very important. So I just want to reiterate. I mean, when you look at the language of the scriptures, it's it's by far and away

>> removing sin, taking away sin, cleansing sin, um, you know, so if you have language in the Bible where 95% of the description of what's going on is a cleansing process, a removing of sin. Uh, Jesus come, Jesus is the lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. Um, and and what what Steve Greg says and I think what a lot of penal substitutionary atonement says is like, you know, there's just a lot of metaphors going on here. And so the cleansing is just a metaphor for punishment. The removal of sin is just a metaphor for sins really being punished. And, you know, um, Christ making us new is just it's just a metaphor for he's punishing our sin. I mean, no, these the you can't take, um, a snippet of of biblical language and say, well, this is this is, um, judicial. This could be taken as judicial. This could be taken as punishment. Um, and then make 95% of the Bible metaphorical. It's like that that's just not the way it works. And when so when you look at the overwhelming language used to describe Christ's uh atonement and and a removal of sin, it's it's cleansing, it's removal, it's, um, you know, reconciling us to the Father through the cleansing of sin and the removal of sin. Um, you can't discount that as metaphor and just insert, you know, what you want into it, i.e. penal substitution. So I just want to make that point.

>> Yeah, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate you gentlemen. This has been a really good, uh, broadcast. We need to we need to do this weekly. I really enjoy all of you. Um, real quickly, I want to say thank you to BellyFlop for the super sticker. That is very generous and much appreciated. Thank you so much for that. Um, we have, uh, Stephanie, thank you for the super. Says, uh, we all need a little R&R, repentance and relationship with the Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for showing us the way. God bless all of you and thank you for your work. So you you guys are definitely, uh, all appreciated and, um, yeah, I really sincerely am enjoying this program today. Now, when when Steve was on there, I was in the side chat for a lot of that and I was, you know, arguing and doing what I do. Uh, and I I noted, you know, that what what in my estimation, a lot of what Steve was doing was not defending the unique distinctives of PSA, but he was appealing to, um, various aspects for the work of Christ that were articulated maybe in ransom. We're we're saved from, you know, we're rescued from, uh, death and devil, or that we're healed and, you know, restored icon or theosis models, or that we're taught, uh, God's love in these moral exemplar, uh, sort of models. And so whenever you would press a particular unique entailment of PSA, the move would be to appeal to something that wasn't in dispute, like God's love for the world, or, you know, God healing, or God rescuing, or destroying the works of the devil and the hold of the grave. And so I it was it was difficult for me to convey that in the limited text, uh, that I have in the side chat, but I was like, hey, we're not engaging with some of the unique distinctives of PSA to defend PSA. And I think part of that is that I think Steve, while he's far more knowledgeable on this than your your typical layperson kind of new to the discussion, as he said, he hadn't really studied it in depth and he wasn't familiar with some of the counterarguments. So, I think that he wasn't even really familiar with a lot of the unique claims that PSA was making and it and as you mentioned, it created this kind of tangled mess. And so, one of the unique claims that I harp on all the time is that, uh, PSA argues that God cannot forgive a sin without punishing the sinner. And so around the 1 hour and 8 minute mark, um, this is this is something that that Steve said and I want to play this and get you guys to comment on. Let's see if I can maximize that.

Just and so God's not going to deny his own nature. And if he's a just and good God, then there has to be a punishment for sin because that's the just thing. Is that how you would answer, Steve? That makes sense to me. But I also say that I think God cannot, uh, righteously forgive sin without in some way punishing the sin, uh, or let's just say addressing the sin with with the penalty that that is owed. It's a matter of justice. It's not a matter of personal vendetta that he has against any sinner that I know of. He might, I mean, he might have some personal vendettas against some people. I I can't speak for God fully, but that's not that's not a necessary part of my understanding of this. Uh, God might have, if God had zero anger toward sinners, he would still be in a position to say, uh, I cannot ignore unredressed evil. So I will redress it at my own expense.

>> So, anyone want to want to comment on this?

Well, they've got the same problem that we spoke of earlier. What happened to God God's causal impassivity? Um, I don't know if the interviewer there was quoting somebody in the question that he posed,

>> but Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, um, yeah. You know, the the typical the typical response is God has to punish sin. Well, according to the Greek philosophers and in according to most of the early church fathers, God is causally impassive. God doesn't have to do anything. If God has to punish sin, then they're going to have to explain whether Trinity Seminary, uh, I guess I guess the gentleman is the president of Trinity Seminary. Do they profess classical theism in their philosophy of religion or do they not? If they reject it, then that would be good for them because then they could consistently uphold penal substitutionary atonement. I want to point out something else, too. Um, Steve says that God has to punish sin. Well, somebody who's thought a lot more about the atonement apparently than Steve has is the infamous Paul Washer. And Paul Washer notes that God does not put sin into hell. God puts the sinner into hell. Sin is an abstraction. A sinner is something concrete. The concrete thing is what goes to hell. The concrete thing is what gets punished. In other words, if PSA is true, God is going to be punishing sinners. He is not going to be vaguely punishing some abstraction. I think this is a diversion maneuver that atonement scholars use. No, no, no, no. I mean, we we saw Mike Winger doing this in his PSA series. God's not really punishing Jesus. He's punishing our sin in Jesus. They're trying to make it sound nice. Well, in fact, it's just absurdity. Now, what's really funny, too, is at another point in this interview, Steve Greg said that the Eastern Orthodox don't argue rationally. Well, at this point, Steve Greg is not arguing rationally because he's trying to say that God punishes abstractions rather than saying that God would punish actual beings who sin. Back to this, Eastern Orthodox people cannot argue rationally. All right. I have said in other venues that I don't do Orthodox apologetics. If I were an Orthobro, I would be up in arms at that statement right now. I am neither an apologist, despite what our very charming host called me at the opening of the show, nor am I an Orthobro. But I will point out to Steve Greg that over the span of his career, he has taught dispensationalism. He has taught Christian Zionism. He has taught millennialism and he has taught eternal conscious torment. If Steve, and he has since dropped all of those doctrines, and if he's consistent with his rejection of eternal conscious torment, why then, as I pointed out earlier, he's also going to have to reject PSA. That will be five major doctrines that he has had to stop teaching. So, let me point out to our revered friend Steve Greg, if he had been Orthodox all along, he never would have taught any of those things and he never would have had to reject them. I'm just going to leave it there. Um, also, I I want to point out in, okay, when when you talk about punishing sin, um, so in scripture, there's this dichotomy. It's, uh, retribution versus restoration. Either God's going to punish sin, or he's going to forgive it. There's that, you know, it's not, you don't ever see this caveat. You know, for example, you you look at 2 Chronicles 7:14. If people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin. Okay, there that's the verbiage of scripture and that's over. You'll see those passages over and over again. And never will you see, um, and I will forgive their sin, but but I'll but I'll punish it later, you know, or or retribution's coming. So don't worry. You never hear that. And and when Jesus talks about it, um, he contrasts punishment with forgiveness. He just does over and over again. A clear example of this is is that parable we mentioned in Matthew 18. Read the parable Matthew 18. I think it's 23-35. There is a contrast going on between punishment and forgiveness. And, um, it's one or the other. And and the Father acts that way. That's what the parable is about. It's about how does the Father act, and then the the teaching of the parable is like, now you go and do the same thing, act like your Father, which is you forgive sin. And when when Jesus tells Peter to forgive sin, you know, forgive his brother 77 times, um, he doesn't say anything about a caveat for punishment. It it's just not the way of the Father. And and so when you say, um, God can't forgive sin unless he punishes it, you you're just not on the side of scripture. Um, does God punish sin? Yes. Does retribution exist? Yes. But it's when restoration is no longer available. And when, um, someone has refused the grace of God to restore that individual, what's left is going to be retribution, uh, for sin. But that, but there, but that's in the absence of forgiveness. That's in the absence of restoration. And, um, another thing that, you know, some people don't think about, and I I don't think penal substitution proponents think about this, but like in the Old Covenant, God says, for example, in Isaiah 43:25, he tells them that he is going to remember his people's sin no more. Okay. Um, he says he's going to remove their sin as far as the east is from the west in Psalm 103:12. So if penal substitution is true, think about what's going on. These sins that have been removed. These sins that have been completely forgotten from as far as the east is from the west. Now God is going to take those sins that he's forgotten about and that he's forgiven, and then he's going to put them on Jesus on the cross, and then he's going to remember them again, and then he's going to punish them. Um, that's just that's odd. And and why why would you think that that's going on? And and the same thing in the New Testament, uh, Jesus or Hebrews 8:12 says God says he's going to remember their sin no more. And he tells, uh, Jesus tells people that they're cleansed of their sin, that he's taking away their sin. So the sin that was placed on Jesus's flesh and that was punished with retribution that has already been dealt with, that sin is now going to be put on the individual so that he can then take it away and cleanse it. Like it it just makes no sense. There there is no logical coherence, um, when when you read how scripture talks about sin and how God has dealt with it, forgiven it, that the the fact that he's, uh, imputing that sin on Christ and punished it on the cross just makes all those promises and those reassuring, uh, restoratory, uh, blessings of grace. It just makes it like, okay, what's going on? I'm I'm confused here.

Can I can I interrupt and ask a question? Um, how would you interpret Romans 8, "sin is condemned in the flesh"? Because I I agree that saying that, um, sin is punished but not the sinner isn't actually PSA, but, um, how, yeah, how would you interpret Romans 8 that sin is condemned in the flesh of Jesus?

>> Or you asking me?

>> Sorry, Roser. How would you interpret?

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> So, yeah, Romans 8. So, it says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for all those who are in Christ Jesus." Um, you know, again, doesn't say that, um, all condemnation has already been dealt with or, uh, dished out in Christ Jesus. Um, it says,

>> "Sin was condemned in the flesh." Yeah.

Says, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh." So I see that as, um, so the Old Testament in Hebrews talks about this. This is kind of like one of the main, I think, themes of Hebrews is the weakness of the Old Covenant and the weakness of of the Old, uh, Testament and why Jesus is a better covenant and why the New Covenant is, um, is just basically what what it's all about. And and part of that was the weakness of the flesh. So in the Old Covenant, um, the cleansing had to happen over and over again. It was day after day they had to offer sacrifices. Uh, year after year the priests had to go into the holy place and cleanse sin and, um, and it cleansed the the temple, uh, God's dwelling place, so that God could dwell with his people because God is not going to dwell in a contaminated tabernacle. That's that's the whole point of atonement. And so in the New Covenant, well, what's better about it? Well, what's better is that, um, we we don't depend on that old system anymore. Uh, you are the tabernacle of God. And Jesus isn't coming year after year, day after day as a sin offering. He is a perpetual high priest, um, who cleanses you so that God can dwell inside of you. So you are now cleansed by Jesus because he's a sin offering, and and then you become God's dwelling place, and then the Holy Spirit comes inside of you, and and that is, I think, what Paul is is kind of referring to. He goes into, um, Jesus condemned sin in the flesh is is kind of a way of saying that, um, he died to the flesh, and in the same way, you are supposed to die and be crucified and die to the flesh, and Paul uses this language a lot that we are supposed to crucify the flesh, and it's by dying to ourselves and dying to the flesh that the Spirit is able to take over, and it's the Spirit who brings life, and now the Spirit spirit is able to guide us, and we are able to overcome the flesh when we die to it and allow the Spirit to guide us. And so he's contrasting, uh, you can't live both by the flesh and by the Spirit. You, uh, Jesus has made a way, he did what the law could not do for you to die to the flesh. He condemned sin in the flesh, and he's allowed a way for you to follow the Spirit and live by the Spirit. So, I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of how I see the language being used there.

>> Yeah, I I I think I understand what you're saying, Roser. And it is the example in which he lived by, um, holding that, um, perfect submission. And so, he condemned, uh, sin by his obedience. It wasn't as though God was, uh, condemning his Son, but it was in the obedience he was condemning sin as one of us who had taken on the fullness of of human nature. Uh, is there anywhere else anyone else wants to go on this? We're coming at the two-hour mark here. We haven't had a whole lot of clips to Steve. I want to make sure we're we're giving him, uh, his due. There's a lot of us that have opinions on this, but is there a particular clip anybody would like to to jump on that we haven't addressed yet? I think Phil had said there was something at the 52-minute mark. Was that right, Phil?

>> Uh, let me let me have a look.

>> I think I saw it in the

>> Yeah, we were talking about it before, but I think we covered it.

>> Oh, never mind then.

>> Well, is there anything anybody else wants to address before we dismiss, and we can always have a part two? We, you know, Steve has a standing invite. Not communicated this to him personally, but, you know, if I'm going to, uh, offer a response to anybody, I want them to know that they, you know, can come on and have that conversation here. Um, you know, I'd be more than happy to bring Steve on. If anybody knows how to get in touch with him and wants to let him know, we'd be more than happy to host him. And hopefully, while we've disagreed, we've demonstrated a spirit of charity and ecumenism and kindness and trying to cast him in as as positive a light as we can despite these disagreements. So, um, uh, oh, did we just drop somebody? Did I just lose Roser?

>> Looks like Roser might have dropped.

>> Oh man, there's no point moving forward now. You guys are all a bunch of second-rate, uh, guests compared to. No, I I really appreciate all of you. Like, sincerely, I appreciate your commentary. I appreciate the tone, the demeanor, the expertise, um, and the willingness to to give us your time and come on here and and share this with, uh, the audience and and even me. I've learned a lot today and, uh, and I appreciate you all. Any final words? Uh, we'll start off with, uh, Kevin. Kevin, you have any final words for us today? You're muted. You're muted. There it goes. I hope. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. Steve Greg, uh, he operates from what most preachers today in the Protestant, uh, arena operate from, which is the the idea, he didn't use the word infinite, but again, that this justice is like infinite. It has to be balanced or paid. And therefore, forgiveness just doesn't work in the normal operative sense. But but that again, it's just reading the entire scripture with a foreign narrative. The the scripture was written when it was written to, uh, most of the most of it was written understanding that the audience, most of them did not even know how to read. So these people didn't have theological books so that to train them to process all these concepts. They would have had to understand it in the vernacular of the common people. And so forgiveness actually meant forgiveness, and, uh, so justice just meant normal human justice, and and these kind of things. So when you try to squeeze this other alternate metaphysical narrative into the scripture and process it all through that, it just gets all garbled. And that's what we're dealing with. It's it's where everything gets becomes an argument, and we may be using the same words, but we're coming with completely different concepts. And until that gets processed out to where the preachers themselves can understand, okay, this is what I was, the way I was trained to think, but this is what it meant when the scripture was written, this is how they would have understood it in common vernacular terms and understand it that way, until that gets sorted out, that's always going to be a mass confusion. So, that's just, I can end with that.

>> Thank you. Thank you for that, Kevin. It's well said. Um, Roser, any any parting words for us as we're getting ready to draw this to a close?

>> Yeah. Sorry, my app froze. So, kind of missed the last few parts, but, um, uh, yeah, I I would say that, um, just, you know, in general, it's it's important, um, how we frame the conversation. Um, I think if you are defining atonement as the death of an offering, um, you're going to misunderstand it. And I I think if that's your conception from the get-go, um, you're going to you're going to struggle. I think if you think that atonement is, um, multiple theories, uh, there's there's several ways and mechanisms by which, um, we're cleansed of sin. Then I also think, um, you're probably going to misunderstand atonement. I I think it's important, uh, and what I lay out kind of in my book, is that you want to understand what it meant in the Old Testament, you want to understand what it meant to the Jew, uh, because when the apostles, um, describe Jesus's atonement and and the way that he cleanses sin, they inevitably use the language of their scriptures. They use the language of the Torah. And and so those words and those phrases have meanings, and if you don't understand those meanings, uh, and what's going on, then you're not going to understand what it is that they're saying and describing about Jesus. And so I I think it's critical to really understand atonement in the Torah. I think it's, um, important to not wipe those understandings away and those definitions away as, um, metaphorical or, uh, you know, basically redefine them how you want to, um, because they're important, and that's going to help guide you in understanding Christ's atonement and the purpose of it.

>> Well said. Thank you for that, Roser. Thanks for coming on here. Uh, by the way, uh, Phil, any parting words?

>> Um, probably don't have much. Um, so thanks, guys. I've appreciated the tone. Like I said in the beginning, a lot of discussions and PSA can get really angry and and sound rude, but, um, I think we did well and I really, really appreciate, um, Steve Greg in that as well. Um, yeah, that I have nothing bad to say about him at all. Um, but yeah, agreeing with Roser that, uh, Jesus died according to the scriptures, and so a healthy understanding of the scriptures, um, especially the Old Testament and Leviticus, because Leviticus is the best, um, like sets us up for a healthy understanding of, um, what sacrifice and what atonement means. You can't, I think I think one of the big problems is that the reformers, especially, um, looked at Jesus and saw someone who was punished and bruised and died a really painful death, and then they looked back and they're like, "Oh, that must be what a sacrifice is." And then we'll read that back into Leviticus. Um, and I think they did that the wrong way around. So start with Leviticus, get a healthy understanding, and then then move on to define sacrifice.

Good word. Good word. And thank you for getting up so early to join this panel of of Yankees. Is that what we're called? Aren't we called just a, I don't, I don't know. There are things that we're called.

>> I won't tell you what you're called.

>> I won't say.

>> But you are you are truly appreciated, Phil. Thank you for getting up so early and, uh, spending your time here with us. I appreciate you and agree with what you said. Uh, Paul, I think, uh, last but not least, any any parting words for for us today?

>> Steve Greg has spent decades studying, memorizing, and teaching the Bible. Consequently, he is encyclopedically knowledgeable on the subject, and his opinion is well worth hearing on biblical topics. If Steve Greg says something about a biblical topic, you should listen and listen very closely. Let me tell you though, his position on the atonement is amazingly unschooled. I was actually shocked in this video when I saw this. It I I just thought it was shocking how little knowledge he had on the subject and how little he seems to have reflected on it. And he's going to have to start reflecting because now that the gatekeepers have been swept aside, now that anybody and everybody has a platform from which he she can speak, everybody is pointing out the problems in penal substitutionary atonement. For decades, those were just swept under the rug. Now, they're going to have to be dealt with. And Steve Greg is an inveterately honest person. Steve Greg bases his thoughts and his life upon what he finds in the Bible. I believe when Steve Greg looks into the atonement, he is going to discover as we have that it is false. PSA is a made-up doctrine. It is an admixture of late antique monarchism mixed with medieval concepts of social status and Catholic penitential system and some of the worst ideas of the Reformation. It is just a pile of junk. It is a mess. It has no business in the theology of any Bible-believing Christian. He has been facing a lot of questions on his show nowadays about Eastern Orthodoxy and also about PSA. He's going to have to start looking at these things honestly. And we already pointed out the four things that he had dropped. He had dropped eternal conscious torment, dispensationalism, millennialism, and Christian Zionism. Well, I believe because of his honesty, he's also going to have to drop PSA as well. And now that you've dropped five of the major teachings of Evangelical Incorporated, you will have to ask yourself, why am I still in Evangelical Incorporated? Maybe I should investigate a church that has never taught any of this garbage. That church, by the way, is Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't do apologetics, but I mean, Warren, innumerable people have contacted you. Fewer people have contacted me and said, "Hey, look, by listening to your shows on the atonement, I decided to convert to Orthodoxy." And we weren't even pushing Orthodoxy in those shows. We weren't doing Orthodox apologetics. What happened is people just noticed that Evangelical Inc. has lied to them about this extremely important topic for decades. So why do they want to remain with a lying institution like Evangelical Incorporated? Enough said.

I thought you were going to tell us how you really felt there for a minute, Paul. Uh, I appreciate I appreciate the words and and, um, thank you for coming on and and sharing your your heartfelt position and your expertise on these topics. Uh, yeah, as as Belly Flop champ over here says, stop, uh, Paul, stop beating around the bush. What do you really think about PSA? So, but no, I I appreciate the passion. I appreciate the, uh, the the depth of study and expertise on this topic. And we need to do more of these Q&A panels, uh, either together or with just a mix of what we have here. Maybe even maybe even dare I say include Will Hess in one of these. He he's going to have he's going to have, uh, he's gonna have to be included at one point in this. Um, but I thank you guys so much for everything that you've done today for this, uh, this kind response. I hope it's been beneficial to our listeners. I hope Steve has appreciated has appreciated, and I hope Braxton and JP, uh, listen to this as well and and can see some of the concerns and and arguments that we have, and that really this is just an opportunity for iron to sharpen iron, and, uh, and that's that's how we're going to arrive at, uh, you know, being, uh, good Bereans and and and that biblical pushback is going to challenge and and provoke all of us, hopefully, uh, that we respond in in truth and and fidelity to Christ and become more in his image and likeness as a result of these sort of interactions. So, thank you each so much. Paul, thank you. Roser, thank you. Phil, thank you. Kevin, thank you. And to our audience, thank you guys so much for tuning in. I think with that, we're going to go ahead and draw it to a close, and I'll see all of you guys backstage.

Putting on Christ is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do. And it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all. CS Lewis