This Is How The Cross Works

Hey, and welcome to the Tuesday live stream. Here's the problem we're dealing with today. There's influential people, very influential people right now in the church. Whether they're actually part of the church or not, I'm not going to comment on. But they're denying and even demonizing central aspects of the meaning of the cross. That's like, there's things that the cross means. This is what the cross is about based upon scripture, and they're not only saying that's not true, they're saying it's evil. That's kind of a big deal.

And so I'm doing this series right now, you know, getting into the idea that Jesus really did die in my place and he suffered the penalty for my sins. We call this penal substitutionary atonement, one label to give it. But the idea is those elements are in the gospel. They're part of the message of the cross, and we need to hold to these things. And of course, this is under attack. The gospel is always under attack, and we here, we stand as believers. Our job is to know the word, know the gospel in particular, and to hold to it and to proclaim it. So that in the face of those attacks, we are the ones saying, "Hey, hey, here's the purity and the truth of the gospel." That is our job. That is our goal, and it is probably one of the most important things we do. So it is under attack.

But here's the things I'll say. They'll say that penal substitution, or the idea that Jesus died in my place, taking the punishment for my sin, that he suffered the punishment for my sins, that this is cosmic child abuse, or it turns God into a pagan deity who's out for blood. I use quote marks with my fingers here, 'cause this is what they say. I'm hearing, I'm quoting the guys who say this kind of stuff. Sadly, this is where a lot of the conversation is, and I even hear this stuff entering into pulpits and entering into conversations I have with individuals as I reach out to pastors and leaders to say, "Can we talk about penal substitution?" I hear them quoting these guys saying it's cosmic child abuse and that kind of thing. It's a pagan idea.

I want to say this. If you've been influenced by these things, you have been bamboozled. You, my friend, you've been bamboozled. Why do I say that? Because you're not even asking the right questions. You're responding to a caricature. They caricature the doctrine. They make it as ugly as possible, and you're going, "I reject that. That's ugly." And what I would say is, "Hey, you should reject the fact that they make it ugly and say it's not ugly. You're distorting it." But what you should do is stop and ask a whole different question: Is it biblical? That's the question we're asking right now. What does the Bible teach? Don't, don't tell me you can call it names, and you can make fun of it, and you can try to make it look ugly. I know you can do that. The question is, what does it actually teach? Is it biblical? That's where I think guys are getting bamboozled. They're getting kind of bullied into, or shamed, I should say, into rejecting something that's actually a wonderful biblical truth.

And there is one passage that the anti-PSA individuals always avoid, or they dismiss it after only commenting on one verse or one part of one verse in this whole chapter, in this whole section. This one passage is what they avoid. That's what we're going to talk about in today's live stream. This is part of a series on penal substitution, and I will put a link to the whole playlist in the video description once I'm done teaching this here, and you can check it all out. That will, I think, by the time it's done, it's going to be a very robust, very full-fleshed-out thing, and I will be listening to criticisms along the way. Maybe I'll make a little video at the end responding just to the criticisms of my own video content. I think that might be a fun way to let everybody hear the whole story, hear both sides, that kind of thing.

So, is it biblical? That's the question. That's the question, and the question we're trying to answer today is by getting into the major passage, Isaiah 53. This is the crux of the cross, pun intended, and this is where the scripture tells us why Jesus died, what it affected, how it works. This is this is a major section for teaching us those things. It's not the only passage that talks about it. I dealt last week with a whole bunch of other stuff in Leviticus and Exodus. We dealt with penal substitution being in fact, it'll be important that you've seen that video or you've considered those things because Isaiah 53, it it pulls from the passages we went over last week. So earlier, two weeks ago, I should say. So that's kind of important. But this is basically, in short, how we know what the cross means and how the cross deals with sin and deals with our rebellion against God to restore our relationship with God. That's what this is all about.

And for the sake of this study, while there's a lot of good content in Isaiah 53, I'm going to focus on the stuff that relates to, "Does this teach penal substitution?" or "Does it give us warrant for holding to the kind of elements within that doctrine?" That's the idea. Also, I'm going to be getting into the weeds. The debate of penal substitution, that is, I'm it's going to be a little complicated 'cause I'm not just going to preach, "Here's my opinion." I'm going to bring up objections to my position because I've been looking long and hard, and it's hard to find them 'cause most of the guys who are against penal substitution, they won't never talk about Isaiah 53 except for a verse, maybe one verse, or maybe they'll casually mention stuff, but they never go deep into it. But I had to look really hard to find where they would actually build their case against my case. So I'm going to interact with that. So it's going to be maybe a challenge, a little bit, for some to follow this video. But it might actually really help people who feel like they've been caught in the weeds, and this might be your way out. At least that's my hope. That's my hope. And I don't pretend I have all the perfect knowledge here. You need to consider what I say thoughtfully. Maybe I've got something off in some sense, but I'm going to try to show my work. Try to show you why I think this, why I'm coming to this conclusion, so that hopefully it will just be a blessing to you.

So let's talk about Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is one of the servant songs of Isaiah, and already we enter into a debate. [laughter] Isaiah 53. It says that the New Testament shows us that this is all about Jesus, right? Some people want to claim it's not even about Jesus, that Isaiah 53 is really about Israel or something like that. That's kind of a separate debate, but I'll just mention very quickly. If you right now, on your own, just go Google, you know, servant songs of Isaiah, and you can see them in 42 and 48, 49, whichever chapters and verses they are. And if you just read through the servant songs, you'll notice the same thing I noticed, right? That progressively, as you move from one song to the next, it becomes more and more clear that the servant is not in, in first, it looks like it's Israel, and then as you keep going, it's it's one individual within Israel who is going to accomplish something where Israel has failed. This is the clear reading of the text. And by the time you hit Isaiah 53, it's it's well established that the servant is one person within Israel. Isaiah 53 also makes it very clear that it's not Israel. It is rather one person, probably within Israel, who's doing something on behalf of all the people.

And the New Testament refutes that idea that it's not about Jesus as well, 'cause it, Isaiah 53 is the grid, and we'll get into more of this later. It's the grid through which the New Testament interprets the sacrifice of Christ. They're they're saying, "This is what Jesus did. This is what it means. It's it's coming from Isaiah 53 specifically." So Isaiah 53 tells us what the cross is about. And I would say any quote theory of the atonement, or you know, idea about what Jesus did for us, how does it work? You know, not just that he saves us, but how does that work? That question. Any any way you answer that question, if you don't include Isaiah 53 in your answer, you've missed out on some really important data about what Jesus did for us. You're just ignoring a central teaching.

So that being said, let's start Isaiah 53. We're going to start in Isaiah 52. And the reason why you're like, "At 52?" Because really, the section is Isaiah 52:13 all the way through Isaiah 53, the end of the chapter, verse 12. I'm just going to say Isaiah 53 as shorthand for Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 because it's just easier. So now you know. Isaiah 52:13. This is it's it's all one section, okay? I'm not cherry-picking something out of the text. This is a servant song we call it. It's all one big section, and it should all be read together. It should all be read in context if we're going to understand it well.

And it says here in verse 13, "Behold my servant." That's where we get the "my servant" passage here. Understanding. Oh, hold on. That was the Septuagint. I'm going to come back to the Septuagint in a minute. First, let's go to Isaiah 50, oops, 52:13. And we'll start with the ESV. "Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of men—so he is just, he's beat up, he's marred, he's all that." It goes on in verse 15 and tells us, "So shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand." "That which has not been told them they see, that which they have not heard they understand." This.

Okay, there's a lot here, but I'm I'm focusing on the PSA kind of elements, penal substitutionary atonement. And there's one in particular that stands out, and it's this word, "sprinkle." It's this word, "sprinkle." This this is kind of a big deal. That word "sprinkle" in the context of consistently and constantly in the Old Testament, that word is used to refer to sprinkling, like like when you sprinkle water or oil or blood on something. In the Levitical law, in relation to sacrifices, and we'll see Isaiah 53 is all about the Levitical law and sacrifices. It's all connected. In relation specifically to the law and sacrifices, the term "sprinkle" is used to refer to when they would say, "Sacrifice an animal and take the blood and sprinkle it on the altar, sprinkle it on the tent, sprinkle it over here, sprinkle it over there." And it was meant to be covering the sins or dealing with the sins of the people. So the significance of this, if if we're interpreting it right, "sprinkle" is referenced to a sacrificial thing, and we'll see later Isaiah 53, we have a lot of support for this. Then this sprinkling of the suffering servant of Jesus is going to sprinkle not just Israel, but many nations. It's going to be an atoning thing for lots of nations around.

Now, there's of course a huge debate on this issue because they will say that the "sprinkle" of of verse 15 is actually translated wrong, and footnotes will even say, for instance, we have a footnote here in the ESV that says, "or startle." It could be "startle" instead of "sprinkle." And there's a big debate on this, and and I I definitely lean strongly towards thinking "sprinkle" is correct, and most translations do as well. But this is where the debate begins. They'll say, um, "sprinkle" means "startle." Mike, and in the Septuagint, and you'll need to know what the Septuagint is for today's study, if you don't already, I'll explain in a second. But in the Septuagint, it actually says "startle" or "astonish," and therefore it's just a misinterpretation. Jesus isn't going to sprinkle many nations like a sacrifice. He's going to shock them. They're going to be, "I can't believe what he went through. Wow, look at that." Well, that's true in and of itself, but is that what it really says?

Um, we're going to get into the Septuagint here. So, the Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was produced, the Isaiah, um, Greek translation was produced from Hebrew to Greek, um, probably 200 years before Jesus, um, probably about that time. Now, this this is really old, the Septuagint. And so, the Septuagint of Isaiah 53 reads in several important places very differently from the Hebrew that we have in either the Masoretic text or the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient Hebrew copies that we have of Isaiah 53. It reads very different. One of the differences is that it says "startle" instead of "sprinkle." I'll get later into the idea that the Septuagint is probably not a reliable translation of Isaiah 53. That'll come much later because I want to put it where I feel like it'll fit best in this in this whole deal.

But let me give you a case offered by John Goldingay and David Payne. These two authors offer their case for why it should be translated as "sprinkle," not as "startle." This is in their work, "A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40-55," volume two. Okay, page 294 and 295. They note a few things. They note that other ancient translations also translated as "sprinkle." Specifically, the Greek versions of Aquila and Theodotion, they render it "sprinkle," not "astonish." The Vulgate, the Latin Vulgate, renders it as "sprinkle," and in the authors' judgment, they're like, "Hey, these guys aren't being influenced by theological concerns. They're just translating." The Peshitta, an ancient translation of the work itself, um, also renders it as "purify." And so, we have multiple translations that that affirm this. They also go on to say, "Hey, the word itself, um, in Hebrew, really should be 'sprinkle.' That's how it is handled throughout the rest of the text of the Old Testament. It's always as a sprinkle term." And so they conclude the following: "These renderings suggest that the versions were able to work out that this is a distinctive usage of the verb without the usual preposition."

What? Why am I quoting all that? Because I realize I have a mixed audience. Some of you guys, I'm introducing you to these topics, and some of you, you're deeply introduced to these topics, and you're just looking for someone to help you out of the weeds, so to speak. So I'm going to kind of cover both. I'm going to give you sort of some deep stuff and some more shallow stuff to kind of hopefully help everybody. But the, uh, yeah, the bottom line is that the, um, the Septuagint seems like it's drawing from Aramaic, Aramaic, as opposed to Hebrew, to justify their translation. Other translations don't agree with the Septuagint, and I'll say this, the Septuagint is sus, is suspect in Isaiah 53 in particular for reasons I'll get to later in this video. Okay, let's move on.

So, we already have some, some, uh, sacrificial terminology that's right there. If I'm wrong, it's not going to kill my case because my case doesn't depend on that. That's like a cherry on top. Um, okay, Isaiah 53, verse 1. It says, "But who has belie-, who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not."

Okay, now it's getting into the the important stuff for today's case here. Verse four: "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." Now, let me pause right here and say, um, griefs and sorrows and carrying these things for, in the context of Isaiah, this is where we need to recognize the book has a context. Isaiah's written to a people who are suffering under God's judgment or punishment for their sins. They're grieved, and they're full of sorrow, and they need to be healed, but yet there is, and they need peace, but they don't have it 'cause God says there's no peace for the wicked. Throughout Isaiah, they're afflicted, they're they're just being wrecked, and it's it's not just because they're oppressed by bad guys. They are oppressed by bad guys, but the reason is because of their sin. And so, in context of Isaiah 53, um, or in context of Isaiah chapter 53, verse four, the "him bearing our griefs," these griefs are the result of God's punishment on their sin, and this man is bearing them. That's the context of the the chapter in the whole book and in the whole Old Testament.

But then they go on and they say, "Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." And this is going to be an important, important verse to debate on, along with verse five. "But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

Now, here's where, um, this is, you know, most of the time they don't deal with Isaiah 53, the anti-penal substitution guys. I, in my experience, I'm not saying I can't speak for everybody. I'm saying the guys I've encountered, the people I've been able to access, and I've looked and looked and looked, most of them, they don't deal with Isaiah 53. But they always, if they do deal with it, they always hook on verse four and make this almost their whole case. Um, "Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." Here's where they want to say, "We thought Jesus was being punished, but he wasn't being punished." That's what verse four is saying. Um, "It wasn't God who did it. We punished Jesus. We hurt him, but it wasn't from God." And here's where I'm, we're going to encounter this over and over again with those who deny penal substitution. I can agree, often times, with what they affirm, but I can't agree with what they deny. I will affirm, "We attacked Christ. We sought to, you know, we as a people sought to punish him." Uh, but I can't affirm what they deny. They deny it wasn't God. God didn't do it. God didn't have this in mind. It wasn't some sort of plan of God's in that sense of directly causing these things. And there, I have to deny that. Um, and that's going to be the case constantly. They're giving these us these false dilemmas, and we're we're we're saying, "That's not that's not the way it is."

Um, so this is actually ends up being kind of an anachronism, and you'll hear this constantly, guys. You need to know this if you're going to enter this debate. "We we thought he was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, right? But he was pierced for our transgressions." So it wasn't anything Jesus did. It was all on, it was all us. It was our sin that hurt him. He didn't, he didn't get punished. That is just, this is anachronism. They're reading into verse four penal substitutionary atonement, and then verse five is the rejection of penal substitutionary atonement, but that's not what verse four and five are saying when you look at them in context. When you take away the theological baggage that some people are bringing to the passage, it's simply the crowd, the the crowd's not saying he was he was punished for our sins to bring us forgiveness. Oh, no, we thought he, we thought he was punished to bring us forgiveness. Verse four. "But he was pierced for our transgressions." That's the anachronism. You know, it just says, "We we thought he was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted," meaning we thought Jesus deserved it. We thought he earned it. We thought he was getting what he deserved, and this is what the people of Israel were thinking when Christ was on the cross. See, this proves that he's a, he's he's a bad guy. This proves that God rejects him. They thought he was being punished for their own sins. That's the error.

The text goes on to affirm why he was actually punished, or why he suffered, I should say. I, I won't slip the word "punish" in there just yet. Um, they they say, "He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities." And then it just makes it even more clear. "Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace." Chastisement that brought us peace. Now, here's where I did some major homework on the word "chastisement." Did you know "chastisement" is in the prophets? In the prophets of the Old Testament, it's always affliction from God. It's not affliction from man, and that's what the anti-PSA crowd wants to say. Um, "No, we, you know, we sinned against him. That's how he was pierced for our transgressions. We, we, we hurt him." It's just saying we sinned against him. But it's not saying that, right? It's saying that there was a chastening upon him, and it was the chastening that brought us peace. Remember, Israel, they get no peace for the wicked. Jesus, he suffers for them. Now they can have peace. Why? 'Cause the punishment, or the chastening they deserved, it went on Christ. That's what this passage seems to be clearly teaching.

When I say "chastisement" is in the prophets, always affliction from God, let me give you a list of examples. You might want to write these down. Isaiah 26:16. That's it used in Isaiah. This passage, 53:5. Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 30. Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 3. Jeremiah 7:28. Jeremiah 10:8. Jeremiah 17:23. 30:14. 32:33. 35:13. Ezekiel 5:15. Hosea 5:2. Zephaniah 3:2. Zephaniah 3:7. That's every occurrence of the word in the prophets. Always in the context of God bringing suffering upon people as a result of their sin. And it says, "What the chasti-, chastisement that brought us peace was upon him." That is clearly a substitutionary element that's happening there and an element of punishment in the passage.

Now, some would object to this and they'd say, "But Mike, God can't use wicked men to punish." Um, "You know, these are evil men. They're wrong for doing this to Christ. So so God wouldn't be using them to punish Christ. That'd be unjust." But God uses wicked people to judge people all the time in the Old Testament. The Moabites, he uses to judge the Israelites, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and then he uses them to judge each other, and he calls them bad guys all the all the place. God uses humans for his purposes, for his glorious, just purposes, even when those people are unjust, and that's consistent in the Old Testament.

In Isaiah 53, um, verse 10, we we have a relevant passage because here's the thing. They want to say, um, let me find the verse here. Um, "Okay, he was crushed for our iniquities." There it is. Okay. Um, this is this is kind of like a key pa-, key point I'll bring up, and I know this stuff gets a little confusing, so forgive me, but, um, you know, guys like Brian Zahnd, or I think Bruxy Cavey, I'm pretty sure I've heard him support this as well, and I point these guys out 'cause they're prominent here on YouTube, and that's where a lot of you guys are watching. Um, and other guys who want to come against this, I think, uh, Greg Boyd says the same thing. They say, "Jesus was crushed for our iniquities in the sense that our iniquities crushed him. Our iniquities did the crushing." And then they say, "Therefore, it wasn't God." And remember how you can you can affirm half of what they say, but you can't affirm the the other half. That's the half you can't affirm. Oh, it wasn't from God. God didn't want that to happen. God didn't do it. God wasn't involved. That's like a mantra with the people who are against penal substitution.

But keep in mind, that word "crushed" is used one more time, and that's in Isaiah 53:10. So let's zoom down there. We'll we'll come back up in a minute. Where it says, "It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief." This is the agency. This is the one doing the crushing. It was human, human involvement, but yet ultimately, you zoom out and you see the sovereignty of God. It was God's will, and he crushed. And it's the same Hebrew word, right? "He was crushed by our iniquities." Well, now we can go and say, "Well, how did that work?" Because it was God's will to crush him. Because God has put him to grief. So, this is an active, God is active in the in the, uh, in the crushing. In the in in the death of Christ and the sacrifice of Christ, he is taking an active role. That's the idea we're getting.

Um, let's see. It'll It knows to become more more clear as we keep progressing through Isaiah 53. It'll just get more obvious as we go 'cause I'm just building the case step by step. I'm not hanging my whole case on any one of these verses. And I'll answer objections about the Septuagint in a little bit for those who are chomping at the bit thinking, "What about?" I'll get there. Um, okay, so let's talk about this word "pierced." Um, "He was pierced for our transgressions." Pierced for our transgressions. Now, transgressions are, um, according to, uh, Dr. Michael Brown, he's a Semitic scholar, and you know, he's a language [clears throat] expert on this stuff, and he says, um, transgressions is a willful, our willful rebellious acts. They're willful rebellious acts. So, these are these are like next-level sins, you know, in, you know, all sin is, you know, here in this giant category of sin, but transgression's like within that sin category, and that's even worse than some other sins because, yeah, willful rebellious act.

And then then we get into one of our first debates, um, and this has to do with, you know, was Jesus pierced for our transgressions or was he pierced because of our transgressions? And I'm going to save you, I mean, you could literally spend all day, your whole day studying for hours on just this one little question. I'm going to try and save you a lot of that. Um, the Hebrew word is is "min." The Hebrew is "min," and that gives us the the the "for our" or "because of," and that's the debate. Which one is it? The detractors, the anti-PSA crowd, they're typically going to say, um, that word "min," it means "because of," it doesn't mean "for." And I read several articles where they said this sort of thing. It means "because of," it doesn't mean "for," and so it should have said, you know, "bay," if a different word, "bay," instead of "min," if they wanted to say that Jesus died for our sins. Um, and then once they've said it's "because of," not "for," they go, "Well, if it's because of our sins, then Jesus isn't sacrificially dying in our place to pay the price for our sin or something like that." No, no. Like we're sinning against him. Like he died because we sinned against him, and then it becomes sort of this watered-down. Even when I say it out loud, I honestly think, "How do they sustain like seriousness when they're looking at the text like this?" Um, it just doesn't give them warrant. Even if they're right, even if it means "because of," that doesn't rule out penal substitutionary atonement because penal substitution holds that Jesus died because of our sins. Because of is just way too vague for them to get what they want to get out of it. It's just way too vague. And the word itself isn't so cut and dry.

Um, "min," the word is used over 7,000 times in the Old Testament. It has a huge variety of uses. Huge variety of uses. You can't say it means "because of" and not "for." Sometimes it means "because of," sometimes it means "for," sometimes it has some meaning that's a little bit nebulous between the two, or it means other things. But I've consulted translations, and if you don't know languages, just consulting translations can help you out a bit. Because if translations generally agree on something, then you can see that somebody might be trying to make a debate where one doesn't exist quite as much. I looked at, I don't know how many translations. Most of them say, um, "for our transgressions." A couple, I found two in particular, said, "He was pierced because of our transgressions." The NET, the Net Bible, and the HCSB, the the Holman Christian Standard, which I imagine the Christian Standard, which is the same same version, really, says the same thing. Um, but there's a bunch that says, "He was pierced for our transgressions." I'll give you a big list right now: the ESV, the New King James, the NIV, the NASB, the NRSV, the King James Version, the Lexham English Bible, the NCV, the RSV, the ASV, the GNT, the 1890 Darby Bible, the Young's Literal Translation, Douay-Rheims Bible, and the Wycliffe Bible. And they all agree, "for our transgressions." I don't think that they're all, you know, being influenced by by theological bias. Certainly not the New Revised Interlinear Version, which seems like it translates anything in a liberal way whenever it possibly can, [laughter] if you ask me. Um, yeah, so yeah, but even if they were right, if it's "because of," it still doesn't rule out PSA. Um, it just doesn't. Yeah. But this will be a huge debate point, and I think that when you're nitpicking things that don't even make your case, it's evidence that your case is weak sauce, right? That's what you need to learn from this. When they nitpick this phrase, "for our," "he was crushed for our," "because of," you're you're you're just learning how weak their case is against penal substitution in this passage.

There's a lot of sin-bearing words in Isaiah 53 in particular, and here's the first one we get in verse six. It says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Now, here's where you've got to remember, Isaiah is part of the Bible, the Old Testament. Isaiah comes and he's living in the Levitical sacrificial system and times, and they think through those concepts, and they interpret Jesus's sacrifice, or we should interpret Jesus's sacrifice through those concepts. And here's one of those concepts you might miss as perhaps a Westerner or someone who just doesn't maybe look carefully at the Old Testament law. That phrase, "laid on him the iniquity of us all," that's a sin-bearing phrase. Sin-bearing phrase. And there's sin-bearing words in Isaiah. Here in, um, Isaiah 53, verse six. And then we also have one in Isaiah 53:11. "Out of his, out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be sat-, see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be counted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities." And then again in verse 12, um, let me find the verse, the spot. Here we go. "Because he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors." So, this is sin-bearing language three times, and this is terminology from the Levitical law.

Let's look at some of those passages. I want I want to show you how this phrase "sin-bearing" or, uh, "laid the sin upon him," this is huge for understanding what Isaiah's talking about and how it's a sacrificial death that this guy, Jesus, is going to experience. In Leviticus 5:1, we read this. This is what sin-bearing means in the in the mind of the Israelite, in the mind of Isaiah as he's writing this. "If anyone sins, um, in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity." What does that mean? That means he's he's guilty. Like he's going to be in a state of guilt before God and legally. This is the context in Leviticus, and specifically, there's like a juridical or legal guilt that the man faces, um, in the eyes of the law, the Levitical law, because he did that.

Another passage is in, uh, Leviticus 7:18. Okay, so they eat the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offering. Um, they eat it on the wrong day, and they violated the the the the rules for how that sin offering was to be treated. And it says in, "He who eats of it shall bear his iniquity." Okay, so again, we have someone who violated the law of of the Old Testament. Now, they're bearing iniquity, and now they have guilt upon them, and this thing's going to be dealt with either through punishment or through sacrifice. That's generally the the general rule or, you know, idea we get.

In Leviticus 24:15, we get sin-bearing again. Notice that usually people bear their own iniquity. That's the typical way of things happening, right? Um, and speak to the people of Israel saying, "Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin." You will stand in a guilty position before God, you know, bearing sin. You're You're carrying guilt, is the idea. You're going to carry guilt, and then that changes everything in your life. Um, finally, Leviticus, um, 10:17. This is going to be a different passage because this is this is where Leviticus talks about somebody else bearing iniquity. Not his own iniquity, but bearing somebody else's iniquity. Leviticus 10:17. God's speaking to the high priest. He says, "Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is the thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation?" Why? "To make atonement for them before the Lord." Wait, when when I bear iniquity, I'm guilty, but when there's a substitute who bears iniquity, some, you know, my iniquity, our iniquity, it's going to atone for us, that we might be forgiven. That's the context of Isaiah 53. This is so clearly penal substitution and atonement. This is seems like it to me. Um, maybe I'm missing something here, but let me give you another, another, uh, one here.

Leviticus 16:22. This is speaking of the Day of Atonement, which we got into in the last video in this series on penal substitution. We got into the huge details on the Day of Atonement and all that, but it says that the goat shall bear the iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he'll let the goat go free in the wilderness. This goat was the, the priest would touch the goat, put his hands on him, and confess the sins of Israel on the goat, and then send the goat out. And then the symbolism is, he's the sin-bearing goat, taking the sin is being taken away. That's the idea. And so the sacrifice in Isaiah 53 is a substitutionary individual who's going to bear the sins. And I, he'll be called a sacrifice later, so I'm not I'm not just importing that idea. It's in the passage. Um, who's bearing the sins of the people so that they can be forgiven. They think he's being punished for his own sin, but in reality, now that you see the contrast, Isaiah 53 shows us he's being punished for their sins. Or he's suffering for the sins they committed.

Um, so this this rules out the idea that, um, he bore our sins in the sense that we sinned against him. Or like Brian Zahnd likes to say, "We violently sinned our sins into Jesus." And that's, and to him, that's the whole story. He then denies that Christ actually suffered a punishment that we deserved. That's, that part is denied. But rather, with the Old Testament, you see there's this, this idea of guilt. When you sin, guilt is upon you. You're bearing it. But when there's a substitute who bears your guilt for you, you can be atoned for. You can be forgiven. And that is the role of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. Yeah.

Okay, verse seven. Let's read on. Um, "He was oppressed; there it is. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." Now, this is the, the implication is that Jesus, what would happen to Jesus was unjust. And this is where the the anti-PSA guys will agree. They'll be like, "Yes, Mike. Yes, finally you're hearing me, Mike." Verse seven. "It was, it was wrong. He was oppressed. It was wrong." Verse eight's going to support this, too. "By oppression and judgment he was taken away." The idea here is that it was, it was unjust what happened to this suffering servant. And I agree with that. He didn't deserve it. But does that mean that it's not a judicial, penal substitutionary kind of thing that's happening here? Um, no. I think what it means, if you look at all of Isaiah 53 and you don't just hijack one phrase from one verse, it means that in respect to what Jesus deserved, it was unjust. In respect to what we deserved, it was just. He didn't die for his sins. He did it for our sins. He wasn't bearing his own iniquity. He was bearing our iniquity. He was oppressed and he went into judgment, yet he did so because we deserved that. He went in my place. He suffered for me. That's the full context of Isaiah 53.

Um, so we, we need to take all of the truths, not not hijack any out of out of context context. Um, yeah, because let's see. How is it just? Let me give you an example. Hebrews 9:22. How is it just? You know, how does it, how is there some sense of justice in this? Hebrews 9:22. Uh, "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins." There's There's something about the the law, the justice, that says to us, "Yeah, there's there isn't going to be any forgiveness unless there is an offering." And so Christ, he is the offering to bring us forgiveness. So it's just like the animal sacrifices. The animals didn't deserve to die. No one would look at the animal and be like, "You deserve what what's about to happen to you." No, the idea is that other people deserve suffering, and this animal will will will be offered, the life of the animal is offered instead of their suffering. And so that's where Jesus, even here in Isaiah 53, he's called, he's described as being like a lamb led to the slaughter. Like a lamb led to the slaughter. Um, right there.

Okay, so we're going to look now at verse nine. Um, it says, and, um, Oh, no, verse eight. We'll just finish verse eight here, and then I'll move forward. "By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people." Uh, that phrase, "cut off from the land of the living," it means killed. It means he was killed. That's just what it means. It's like an idiom when they say "cut off from the land of the living." It means he was killed. So he was killed, and why? Well, he was "stricken for the transgression of my people." So it was not for his own sins, it was for other people's sins. This is the constant mantra in Isaiah 53. He died not for anything he did. He died for what we did.

Verse nine: "And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief." It was the will of God to crush him. God has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Here's where it gets cool. Why? That phrase, "offering for guilt," is a, it's it's kind of like that phrase "sin-bearing." It's a technical term in the Levitical law, or in the law of sacrifices. And just God labored hard to give us the the law as a context for understanding what Jesus did. And then here Isaiah uses that to explain what Christ is going to do for us. This is the interpretive grid for Christ's sacrifice. He was an offering. And what, what, how is it, uh, a technical term? What does it mean in Leviticus or in the, in the law? Um, an offering for for guilt is also called "asham." "Asham" is the Hebrew for it, right? And it's uniquely, there's several different offerings under the law, but the "asham" is the guilt offering. Depending on your translation, it might be called "sin offering," but it's the guilt offering. And this is this is uniquely that which, among all the sacrifices, this one brought forgiveness of sin and is tied to restitution, or not only forgiving the sinner, but making the bad stuff right again that they did. And you can read Leviticus for that. Um, and check it out. Leviticus starting in chapter four. Read five, read six, read seven, and then jump over to chapter 19 and have fun. Um, yeah. And you can look up, it's, yeah, just look up the guilt offering. I think in ESV, if you see the word "guilt offering," it's going to be that word "asham" consistently. So this is this is clearly Isaiah tapping into more sacrificial terminology to describe what Jesus is doing. His soul makes a guilt offering, an offering for guilt. That's what his soul's doing. My life, my soul, my life is offering for guilt, the guilt of others. That's sacrificial substitutionary atonement. And to support this, I just refer you back to the last video in the series where I went through the Levitical, um, concepts of atonement that we and Exodus as well. The atonement in things like the Day of Atonement. Anyway, I, I think that it all works together. It all works together. And that's the beautiful thing. The view I'm I'm bringing to you, it incorporates all of scripture, Old and New Testament. The view of the anti-PSA crowd is, and and and now, don't get me wrong. I, I think that moral influence and, um, and ransom and all these different elements, you know, Christus Victor, are all true elements of the atonement. What I'm opposed to, what I'm really fighting against with this series, is those who want to reach into the atonement and rip penal substitution out and throw it away and then say, "Ah, there we go. We're We're fine now." Or like, "No, you you just ripped out a vital organ in the life of the atonement, and it's not going to work anymore, uh, with with that sort of theory." So, yeah, it's definitely there. Um, now there's more in verse 10 because it says it was actually God's will to crush him. Now, this is this is kind of a big deal, um, because they're going to, the anti-PSA crowd really want to say it wasn't God. God did not have any agency, any causal force in what happened to Jesus on the cross. It was purely a human thing. He just, he pulled it, he pulled back, and he allowed man to beat up Jesus to show us that he could just take it and forgive us anyways. And there's, now there's an element of truth to that, but is that the whole story? No. It was actually God's will to crush him. That's the idea. That's what the text actually says. And the same word for, uh, "it was the will of the will of the Lord" or "the pleasure of the Lord," that same word in the Hebrew is used in Isaiah 1:11. And notice when in the beginning of Isaiah, he sets up the problems, Isaiah 53 is kind of resolving the problems. Isaiah 1:11 says, "What, uh, what to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?" says the Lord. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and of the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats." And so God says he's not interested in their sacrifices. And then Isaiah 53 comes much later and says, "Oh, but here is the sacrifice he does want." Here it is. Isaiah 53:10. "It is the will of the Lord." What? Not not for your blood of bulls and goats, but for Christ him to be crushed. That is the will of God. That is going to delight him or please him or deal with, um, this the sin issue between man and God. That's the idea. Hebrews 10 taps into this big time. So we're going to read a section from that. Um, if we're asking the question of, was it God's will for Jesus to do what he did on the cross, to even have that.

done to Christ? Was that his will or that please God in some sense? Hebrews 10 really uh rams this home. It says, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." That seems like a connection to Isaiah 1:11, doesn't it? "I don't delight in those sacrifices."

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you've not desired, but a body you've prepared for me. In burn offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure." Then he said, "Behold, I've come to do your will, oh God." Your will. Well, what's the your will? Is it just the life Jesus lives? Well, that's part of it, but there's more. There's the sacrifice Jesus gives. Verse 8. When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burn offerings and sin offerings." These are offered according to the law. Then he added, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we've been sanctified. How? Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Through God's will, through what pleases God. The sacrifices didn't. They didn't get the job done. They were there as a picture, but they didn't get the job done of sin. Dealing with sin. Um but what God wanted, what God what pleased God, what appeased God in some sense, was the sacrifice of Christ. It seems to be the clear teaching here of the text.

And to kind of drive this home in Hebrews uh Hebrews in Isaiah 53:10, [clears throat] it is he that put him to grief. It's it's God who put him to grief. So God is causally involved. The Father is causally involved, right? The Son is causally involved in the things on the cross. Like these there is no there's no disagreement in the in the Godhead on what's happening on the cross. Let's see. Verse 11. We're almost done with the uh you know, just discussion of Isaiah 53. Then I'm going to tackle objections. We'll do the Septuagint. That'll be when we get into that cuz that's kind of a whole huge area of study in and of itself, but I'm going to summarize it for us. Um Isaiah 53:11 says, "Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, be uh make many to be accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities." This is we're getting the summary. We're now getting the summary statement of all that stuff we've just heard. Hey, he's going to suffer and through that suffering he he who's righteous, who has no sin, he's going to make other people righteous. How? They're accounted righteous. So here is substitution um reinforced by the idea of imputation. Imputation, what is that? If you don't know, imputation is the idea of this that that legally speaking, Jesus on the cross, my sins were put upon him. That's the sin-bearing language of Isaiah 53. He's the sin-bearer. He's going he's bearing my sin. Three times it says this in Isaiah 53. So he's bearing my sin. Now after that is dealt with, he then makes me to be accounted righteous. I'm It doesn't mean that I behave righteously. It means I'm sort of given righteousness, that legal status of righteousness, just like he was given the status of of my sin upon him. That's Isaiah 53.

1 Peter 3:18 talks about this as well. It says, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous." That phrase the righteous suffering, that's an allusion to Isaiah 53. "That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." So he's doing what? He's bringing us to God. Because it's the righteous for the unrighteous or the just for the unjust. And this is the same terminology as what we get in Isaiah. This is beautiful stuff. There's an element here of dealing with sin before God. It's not just being a model for us. It's not just exemplifying kindness and love and forgiveness. It is doing those things, but it's not only doing those things. It's also Jesus paying it for my sin through his atoning sacrifice because he becomes the sin-bearer who dies for me that I might become in a sense his righteousness-bearer. I I'm bearing his righteousness. It's imputed to me.

Now with with this verse in mind, I 1 Peter 3:18, Christ suffered, that's him dying, right? He's a suffering servant of Isaiah. Once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. Keep this in mind as we look at Isaiah 53 again. Just two of the verses, 10 through 12. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and prolong his days. And the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide spoil the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death. He poured out his soul to death. And was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. I mean, this is it's like boom boom. I mean, this is where the payoff comes. Now if you understand the Old Testament law and you see Isaiah 53 through that through that right proper lens of cultural and biblical lens of the law, you understand how amazing this is. Jesus took your sin upon himself and suffered for what you did that God might be what Romans says, just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So a holy God could also be a forgiving God and that he would deal with this requirement of payment of sin or of of suffering for sin. He would deal with that and also yet exonerate or or forgive those who have sinned. And Jesus is where mercy and justice all meet together perfectly and beautifully in God's love. So we see all this stuff, sin-bearing, all these elements.

Now what What are some of the um the rebuttals to this stuff? I've saved some rebuttals. Um generally the the the stuff you'll hear most often they will not even deal with the verses I brought you today. They're not even going to handle them. Um unfortunately, cuz I looked everywhere. And I mean, I asked people that know theology, you know, they know this stuff. And I was like, "Can you think of anybody who deals with verse by verse through Isaiah 53 to explain how this is not penal substitution, like anybody?" And they generally don't um deal with it at all. But when they do, they run to the Septuagint. This is what they'll do because in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of this of this passage, it's way less emphasis on the suffering um sacrificial atoning work of the servant. It really is much less emphasis. It's still there, though. It's still there. You can just read through the whole If you read all of the Septuagint, they'll quote select verses to try to say, "See, it's not there." But if you read the whole passage in the Septuagint, it is still there. So this is In my mind, this is just deceptive. Um but um I could read it. Let me Let me just read it. Because what I want to do is I want to show you guys um I'm not making stuff up. So um so we'll go to we'll go to some passages here in the Septuagint. This is actually the Greek translation. This is the Brenton Septuagint. This is what comes with Logos software. Um and we're going to read it now. He says, "Behold, my servant shall understand and be exalted and glorified exceedingly. As many shall be We're looking to see if penal substitution is in here, by the way. As many shall be amazed at thee, so shall thy face be without glory from men, and shall and thy glory shall not be honored by the sons of men. Thus shall many nations wonder at him." That's where it would say sprinkle, but here it says wonder because again, the Septuagint doesn't have sprinkle there. But I think I made a case for why it should. Um "And kings shall keep their mouths shut, for they to whom no report was brought concerning him shall see, and they who have not heard shall consider." Chapter 53. "Oh Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? We brought report as of a child before him. He is a root in a thirsty land. He has no form nor comeliness, and we saw him, but he had no form or beauty. But his form was ignoble and inferior to that of the children of men. He was a man in suffering and acquainted with the bearing of sickness, for his face is turned from us. He was dishonored and esteemed not esteemed."

Now look at verse 4. He bears our sins. He bears our sins. There's the sin-bearing language again. In fact, it's actually stronger here in the Septuagint because in this verse in the Hebrew, it says he bears our sicknesses. Although in Isaiah, the sicknesses are related to sins, the sicknesses are caused by sins. They're they're judgment upon the people. And so there's a connection to sin. The Septuagint authors see that, it seems. Um so he bears our sins and his pain for us, yet we accounted him to be in trouble, in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins and was brewed bruised because of our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we're healed. So, this is it's still teaching the same thing. I mean, the door's wide open for penal substitution in this passage. Verse 6. All um all we as sheep have gone astray. Everyone has gone astray in his own way, and the Lord gave him up for our sins. The Lord gave him up for our sins. That seems Okay, this doesn't get you out of penal substitution by any stretch, but these guys will quote this up to agent selectively to make it look like it does. And he because of his affliction opens not his mouth. Verse 7 continuing. He was led as a as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death. For he would practice no iniquity nor craft with his mouth. Now, this is interesting cuz I Verse 9 seems actually stronger for penal substitution because it's not with the with the wicked in his death and in his in his burial with the rich and all that. It doesn't say that, but it says rather it's an exchange. He's going to give the wicked for his burial. He's going to give the rich for his death. And that actually seems to more strongly talk about an exchange of persons here. Um before he practiced no iniquity nor craft. Verse 10. Uh the Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. And here's where a big difference is. Pleased to purge him from his stroke. We'll get into that in a second cuz that's one of the indicators that something's wrong with the Septuagint here. Um instead of uh the Lord is it pleased the Lord to crush him. That's what it would have said in in the Hebrew. If ye can give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed. So, there's still sin offering terminology here. There's still a sin offering. Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul to show him light and to form him with understanding to justify the just one who serves many well, and he shall bear their sins. Here's another major difference with the Septuagint. Septuagint says justify the just one. So, Jesus is the one being justified. In context it would be by his resurrection. It proves who Christ is. Um whereas the Hebrew says that he is by his work justifying other people. He's making them righteous. So, which one do we go with? I'll talk about that in a second. Therefore, he shall inherit many and he shall divide the spoils of the mighty because his soul was delivered to death and he was numbered among the transgressors, and he bore the sins of many. There's the sin bearing language again. And was delivered because of their iniquity. So, I would say the Septuagint doesn't teach these things nearly as strongly as it does in the Hebrew. However, it's still there. It's still there.

Now, let's talk about how the New Testament authors use the Septuagint because what you will commonly hear and I I'm and I'm not I'm not a I'm not a scholar. I'm not trying to pretend to be a scholar, but I I've done a lot of homework on this, and I'm trying to bring it to you guys in a way that will help you out. And from what I understand, a lot of people assume that the New Testament authors they not only use the Septuagint, but that they pretty much exclusively use the Septuagint. And then they and if the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew, then the New Testament guys they would have agreed with the Septuagint. And that's where I think the deception is or the mistake is. The New Testament authors often quote loosely from the Septuagint. Sometimes they just make their own translations. And one example is Matthew 8:17. Matthew 8:17 he actually quotes from Isaiah 53. What's interesting, most agree, Matthew is not using the Septuagint. He makes his own Greek translation that's closer to the Hebrew. Meaning that Matthew prefers the Hebrew in in Matthew 8:17. So, to say that we need to take the Septuagint and use it when Matthew didn't seem like he was stuck to that, it would be a mistake. Um Yeah. In fact, the key passages, all the key passages, the ones I brought up to you just now I appointed them out to you a couple of them. Those key passages are never quoted in the New Testament. Meaning we don't have any New Testament verification that they would pick the Septuagint over the Hebrew in the most important passages where these things matter. And people who say are the anti-PSA crowd, they they tend to ignore that and don't tell people about it. Um

Now, let me give you one specific example where we can show in a key passage that Paul the Apostle seems to prefer the Hebrew over the Septuagint. This is Can I say it took me a while to find this out. I typed Paul instead of Romans. That's funny. Okay, we're going to go to Romans. Uh actually first let's do Isaiah 53:11. Okay, in 53:11 says the Lord is pleased to take away the travail of his soul. Okay, well well um Oh, and then it says he's going to justify the just one who serves many well. So, the question is is Jesus this is the Septuagint you're looking at or you're about to look at. Sorry, my bad. The question is is Jesus justifying others or is God justifying Jesus? Like is Jesus dying to give me justification? Or when Jesus is resurrected is it just God saying, "See, it really he really is true." Now, both of these things are true. I'm okay with either one. The question is what is this passage teaching? So, in the Septuagint it's Jesus who is getting the justification. In the um uh ESV, which I just closed out. Let me on accident. In the ESV, it is actually Jesus who's justifying other people. He's going to make many to be accounted righteous or to be justified. Same same meaning there. Paul actually refers to this, alludes to this in Romans 4:25. And which one does he pick? Well, what do you think? It says who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Now, in this passage in Romans 4, he's quoting from Isaiah or referencing alluding to Isaiah 53 several times here. And this is an additional allusion in verse 25. He seems to think that um that this justification it it comes to us from Christ. So, he sides with the Hebrew, not the Septuagint in one of the few controversial controversial sections. Romans 5:19 he does it again. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. And again, he he there's other references to Isaiah 53 here. These are things that are very likely allusions to Isaiah 53 in Paul's writings. And so, yeah, he's he's siding not with the Septuagint, but with the Hebrew understanding. So, we shouldn't take what some of these guys, the anti-PSA crowd, they suggest that we should go with the Septuagint here. That seems unwarranted on New Testament concerns, but also on linguistic concerns because in several places the Septuagint might actually be biased.

Now, I'm going to let me share with you um a quote. Um okay, this quote, sorry. I'm I'm not on your screen, but this is. Um this is a reference to um Let me see. What's the best way to explain this? All right. Hold on. We'll come back to that in 2 seconds. Let me explain first. The Septuagint, the Greek translation, uh may well be biased. And there's a particular author um David Sapp who has written on this exact topic, and I'm going to reference an article where he goes into great detail on this so that you can research it on your own. Although yeah, I had to buy a whole book just to read the one article, and yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's life. Um but if you want you can follow up on it. So, the main point he makes is this, that where the Septuagint differs from all the Hebrew versions, it does so um in significant theological ways. What I'm saying is you know, when you ask the question, is the Septuagint getting a Greek translation from some Hebrew source or is it representing these guys actually changing the text cuz they didn't like what it said? And in Isaiah 53 it looks like maybe they changed it cuz they didn't like what it said. Because in Isaiah 53 where the Septuagint seems to agree with the Hebrew and it has a little minor differences, they all seem like they're justifiable except in the key passages on penal substitution, this is where the Septuagint has no Hebrew that's like it at all. Um that means we have we have Hebrew resources like the Masoretic text, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it's in these key passages. I'll give you an example right now where it's completely on its own. So, we we read that um that God will uh it it it pleased the Lord to crush him, and he will will pierce or profane. That's that's what um Hold on. I'm confusing you. I know I am. Let me let me read to you from the ESV cuz that's the translation I was using so far, and I don't want to confuse you. Um where it says it was the will of the Lord to crush him, and he's put him to grief. That concept he's put him to grief. Okay, well, in the ancient texts we have the MT, the Masoretic text, that says he will make him suffer or put him to grief. God's God's the one causing it. Jesus is the one experiencing it. In the uh the Qumran Caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Hebrew resource, it says he will pierce him or profane him, which is a slightly different variation on the same thing. So, they're agreeing is the point. But the Septuagint with seemingly no Hebrew ancestor to support it, it changes this to God's not going to crush him. God's not going to put him to grief. Rather God's going to cleanse him of the plague. So, this is a an example of a major difference where there is no Hebrew support for it. This content is in the Septuagint 1QIsa. I put basically on your screen. You'll have to see the video if you want to get the quote. Um this is in an article written by David A. Sapp. And if you want to get the book, here it is. You can get a screenshot of this book cover. Um and uh There we go. Okay, sorry. I'm my own tech guy, so sometimes I I struggle with getting things quite right, but um Jesus in the Suffering Servant Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins. So, the the bottom line here is that these examples every point where the Septuagint differs significantly and theologically from the Hebrew are points where the Septuagint doesn't have any Hebrew support from either the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Masoretic Masoretic text, these different Hebrew resources. And that took a lot of work to figure all that out. So, I do hope it helps you out.

Another one of the objections that people bring to the table against Isaiah 53 is they try to atomize it. They try to say that pieces of Isaiah 53 are about Jesus, but not the whole thing. And that way they can ignore that it has a sacrificial language and terminology in it because it's they try to atomize it. One rebuttal to this is just you can quote 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 21 through 25 and you see allusions to Isaiah from all over Isaiah from the beginning, middle, and end of Isaiah. He's got like five allusions I think in there scattered throughout all of Isaiah in this passage in 1 Peter. And this passage is clearly about Christ dying for us. So, you can't atomize Isaiah. The whole thing is about Jesus. Also, when Philip was spoke to the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts, the question was who is this passage about? And it was the whole passage. He's like, "Who is this all about?" And it was obviously about Jesus in the context of the of those verses. There's other things they'll say it's not really about Jesus' death. It's just about his suffering. That that's clearly wrong. I can give you tons of New Testament confirmation that Isaiah 53 is about the death of Christ, not just the suffering of Christ. And there's it's kind of weird that they even try to go down that angle. But in Luke, in Hebrews, in 1 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Peter, Acts, Matthew, there's just it's all over. It's all over where it refers to Christ's death.

Finally, there's two other little angles they'll take. One, they'll say that the well, what Isaiah's really about is not the Hebrew context. Mike, you're interpreting it wrong cuz you're saying it's about the Old Testament law. It's really about these Greek concepts of someone who goes and they die to avoid like bad things happening to people. Like just you know, evil will come upon a group of people and this guy's going to stop it from happening to them. And they call it this I think the term is apiopatric death. And the issue here is Isaiah's clearly referring to theological concepts established through the law. Not the Greek source sources and stuff like that. Maybe the New Test- the Septuagint guys were thinking that, but not Isaiah. The other final thing they'll do, and this is the worst, and this is when they reveal their colors, to be honest. This is what Brian Zahnd does, and this is I think what Greg Boyd does as well. They just say, "Hey, so what? The Old Testament says that. That's just not right." And to me, this is when all of a sudden like the the sheep's clothing comes off on this topic and we see these people some of them don't care what the Old Testament says. They have theology they're going to force on scripture. So, Isaiah 53 teaches penal substitutionary atonement. I probably don't have much time for too many questions tonight, but I'm going to go to them and we'll see if we can get something there. I hope this is fruitful for you guys. I honestly struggled with how I could simplify this and make it accessible without losing these important sort of complicated arguments that I I wanted to put in there. And I hope that it was useful for you guys tonight. I realize it's challenging stuff. Um but once you get into the debate on this topic, it does get kind of in the weeds. So, yeah, bottom line, read Isaiah 53, the whole thing. Read the whole thing. Read it in the context of Old Testament sacrificial terminology and you see penal substitutionary atonement. And the Septuagint doesn't give you an out for several reasons. Yeah, okay.

Casey Daisy Casey Daisy says, "Do the people who do not believe in substitutionary atonement think we are saved by works then?" Oh, there's a huge variety of those people. Huge variety. So, I can't give you any one answer. Some of them will believe that you're saved by works. Others will be will think it's they're universalist. Others will maybe they reject penal substitution, but they have a really nuanced, really you know, complicated way of getting around it and they have their own unique views and maybe they seem to affirm essential gospel truths through and through. Yeah, it just gets complicated, Casey.

Susan Morales says, "Why would people reject penal substitution aside from discrediting Christianity?" I think that probably the number one motivator just based on what I hear and read and see is they think penal substitution is wicked. They think the concept itself is pagan and immoral. And once they think that, they feel like they've got to find a way around it. That would be probably the number one motive that I experience when I talk to people. And I will be doing a video later to talk about the moral stuff and all deal with all those kinds of objections. Is it cosmic child abuse? Is it unjust? Is it immoral? Is it something that we should reject because of our moral intuitions or something like that. I think they reject it because of their personal sense moral evaluation of it. And usually how do you know that they're wrong? Because when they restate what it is, they restate it incorrectly. This is the god who's mollified by throwing virgins into a volcano. Yeah, that's not penal substitution. Like that's not the doctrine. So, if it's so bad, why can't you say what it really is? Why do you have to say it with these inflammatory distorted terms? That's kind of evidence that you're not really engaging with the actual, you know, doctrine.

Anna Boucher says, "I'm having a hard time knowing the difference between feeling convicted after doing something wrong and feeling condemned. How to keep the godly shame from turning into shame which condemns?" The scripture says godly sorrow produces repentance. That's a good place to start. As you ask yourself, my sorrow, my grief, is it trapping me in sin distant from God? Or is my sorrow and grief driving me to my gracious savior because his kindness leads me to repentance? Condemnation means I pull away from God because of my guilt. Right? But proper conviction means I take that guilt and I run to the cross and I come boldly to the throne of grace where I can find grace and mercy to help in time of need. Right? Because I have a savior. I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So, if you see your guilt causing you to pull from God, something's wrong. It should bring you to him. Guilt should drive you to Christ because you you not only know how bad you feel over sin, you know how gracious and forgiving and kind he is cuz you know Jesus, he bore your sins on the cross. He was your sin bearer. That's already been taken care of. Now, come to him with that stuff. So, Anna, I would say, "Yeah, draw near to God. Draw near to God." If guilt causes you to not draw near, it's the wrong kind of guilt.

Phil Griffin says, "Sorry, it's a bit off topic, but I'm never normally awake for the stream. It's 1:00 a.m. in UK. What's to stop us from sinning in heaven if Satan could didn't we too?" Okay, my my understanding of that would be and here's the thing is that when I answer Q&A like this, if I had 5 minutes to think about it, I would probably give a better answer. So, I'm giving you my off the top off the top of my head answer, but my thought, Phil, would be that when 1 Corinthians 15 talks about the new bodies we receive, the new bodies we receive in the resurrection, he talks about receiving bodies that are in that are not corrupted. And when he talks about the sin nature, he talks about it as the flesh. And so, quickly I'll just big broad sweeping statement here that needs a lot of nuance, I'm sure. I'll say, "Your flesh you will die and with your flesh, but you will rise with a new body and you will not be experiencing temptation." You won't because you are then glorified in that state. So, I won't sin because I've been transformed. You know how you're like, "Lord, I just wish that I wasn't I didn't even have this pull towards sin. I didn't have to even fight these battles." Well, I do believe you won't have to fight those battles in heaven. And won't it make our fellowship so sweet when we're not dealing with our insecurities and envy and jealousy and all the contentions and stuff? Like the fellowship's going to be so wonderful in eternity.

RC Mogo says, "What denominations reject penal substitutionary atonement? I've honestly never heard of anyone arguing this particular aspect of Christianity." I think a lot of Orthodox will then will reject penal substitution. I think um but as far as the whole denominations that reject it, I mean, I think clearly the ones that ones will reject it who reject whole swaths of gospel truth, you know? So, if you look at a denomination and they're off on the authority of scripture and they're off on the very nature of the gospel, they're probably going to reject PSA as well. But which ones I don't I don't think I could give you a list. I'm sorry.

Last question for tonight. Tobias Sedna says, "Is there any biblical basis for acts of the Holy Spirit such as laughing in the spirit, shaking and trembling, warm feelings in the body, etc.? Many Christians attribute them to the Holy Spirit, but I'm unsure if they're fruitful, biblical, or of God." [snorts] Um I Well, you offer a kind of a big sweeping group of possible things to attribute to the Holy Spirit. Laughing, shaking, trembling, warm feelings in the body. Well, I mean, I wouldn't have any objection to feeling warm feelings in the body in your body and saying that was the Holy Spirit. Why why would I perhaps have a problem with the shaking, the trembling, and and the um some of the other elements? Because if they connect to losing control of your body, that doesn't seem and I'm and I'm and maybe I'm wrong here, but it doesn't seem to be what I see in the New Testament of how the Holy Spirit works where we lose control of our actual bodies. You know, rather we have decisions. There's instructions about the prophets when they should speak and shouldn't speak. This implies they have control. There's instructions about tongues when tongues should be used and when it shouldn't be used. What does that imply? The person have with tongues has an element of control. And so, when someone's like, "I'm being taken over and I'm shaking and all this stuff." and they're freaking out or whatever, where do I see justification that the fruit of the Spirit is loss of control? Actually, scripture says the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So, I think of the fruit of the Spirit being self-control and that the loss of control seems seems like it doesn't fit to me. So, there's like my short answer for that one. Hope it helps you guys. And yeah, we're going to continue this series doing this penal substitutionary atonement stuff, but next week will be totally different topics. I'm not going to recover the same ground. I and you're going to learn a lot on the way beyond uh this specific issue of penal substitution. There's going to be a lot more there. Now, if there's things that I need to clarify or that I've just totally missed or maybe even things that people would challenge. They might I think you just got that wrong. Please put it in the comments. I'm actually very happy to have a friendly disagreements on these issues. I just I'm convinced that in the sacrificial context of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53 clearly teaches that Christ suffered in my place as is the sacrifice bearing my sin that would bring atonement so that I would have his righteousness accounted to me. And I think it's beautiful. And for those who think it's wicked, I think you're confused. Bye.