Transcription
Hey, welcome to the Tuesday livestream. I'm Pastor Mike Winger, and we're dealing with the topic of penal substitutionary atonement. What am I talking about? Like, what is this even about? Well, it's about the very meaning of the Cross. It's like, how Jesus saves us. That's the topic. Like, when you get all the fancy words out of the way, we're talking about how Jesus actually saves our souls for all eternity. That's a huge deal. It's at the heart of Christianity.
And one side is not playing fair in the modern debate on the topic of how Jesus saves us. They're not playing fair at all. In fact, they're very underhanded. I'm just being honest here. I'm not mad about it, although sometimes I'm a little mad about it in that moment, not at this moment. Sometimes they're underhanded, they use deceitful tactics, and they just use false information, like historical revisionism, which is going to be the topic of this video, in order to kind of trick people into swallowing things that aren't true.
So, this thing, penal substitutionary atonement, it's a doctrine about the Cross that I think every Bible-believing Christian should accept. And in this series of videos, I'm starting right now, which I'll link a playlist in the description once I add some more content to it, I'm in this series of videos, I'm going to be giving a defense of this doctrine historically, biblically, philosophically, dealing with rhetoric and moral objections to penal substitution, and all that stuff. And I especially hope you'll listen if you don't hold to this doctrine. And if you do, I think you'll find this very empowering and insightful and strengthening to you.
So, what exactly is penal substitutionary atonement? I need to start with the definition, right? Simply put, and I'm trying to really make it simple, simply put, it is the doctrine, and I'm quoting here from a book that pierced for our transgressions, which is a book I'd recommend on this topic. I don't agree with every single thing, don't worry, with everything everybody says, but I think it's a fantastic book with a lot of really good content. At any rate, here's the quote: "The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment, and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for our sin."
I think that is a great summary of the doctrine and includes the idea of the Trinity in there, and that's important. And that we have the trinitarian concept of God, we know who God is biblically. When we look at the Cross and evaluate what Jesus did, we're not thinking of God being separated from himself in some weird sense.
So, let me give you another simpler breakdown of what penal substitutionary atonement is. And it's in those three words, right? It's in the three words we say. It's penal, as in penalty. That's, that's the root word in there, penalty, to penalize, because we're thinking, hey, there's a, there's a punishment, there's a penalty for my sin because I sinned against God. And the penalty is death, right? "The soul who sins shall die." And that we have the wrath of God upon us in that sense of dying because of sin. That's a penalty that's upon us. And God's goodness and justice and holiness do so. Most, most Christians would agree with this, right? Well, a lot of people won't. They will go to the mat to say that this is not true, and we'll deal with that in this series.
So, the P is about penalty. The S is substitution, right? That's the idea that Jesus dies in our place. That Jesus doesn't just die, he dies in my place. And I would say he's, he's my substitution, and he's my representative. And those are two different things. We'll get into that way down the road. But the idea is that my sin, the sins I committed, were like imputed to Christ, so that his death deals with the death I deserve. So he substitutionarily dies, suffers the penalty that I deserve. In this, God is both holy and merciful, you know, as he gives our sins, the, the due penalty of our sins to Christ. And so that is, in a nutshell, that's penal substitution.
And the word atonement, we put in there because atonement means like bringing, coming back, reconciliation with God. Although biblically, the use of the word atonement has more to it than that, which I would get to eventually. But for now, that's our short definition of penal substitution. Penal: have a penalty coming upon me because of my sin. Substitution: because Jesus takes the place, suffers that penalty for me, the death that I would deserve. And then I am brought back to God through him. That's a super, super short, maybe even a little crude, but I think very useful definition of it.
So, I'll finally say this is a quote from the Mass Seminary Journal article. It says, quote, "Penal substitution emphasizes that the punishment from God provoked by human sin was borne by Jesus Christ with his sacrificial death." I like that. I think that's a good way to put it. And like I said, I think if you just read the Bible and you hear that quote, you go, "Yeah, like that's what it is." But this is totally under attack right now. And I mean, vigorously under attack. People hate this doctrine. They despise it. And I don't, I don't even care that they hate it. That's not the issue. The issue is they misrepresent it and get others to hate it with their misrepresentations. And so this is going to be a defense of it. Here we go. This is part one of a thorough, thorough explanation and defense of the truth and goodness of the gospel of Christ. And at the heart of that, what, what the Cross means and how our salvation was purchased. He's gonna be a series of videos.
Today, we're gonna deal with bad history, historical revisionism from those. And I'll put clips up, you can see them, from those who try to say that this is like a new doctrine, a new belief that wasn't held by the early church. Then we're gonna deal with bad Bible study techniques. We'll go and say, what is the biblical case for penal substitution? And I'll build that case thoroughly through Old and New Testament texts. Then, in another video, I'll deal with the rhetoric and misrepresentations. And this is actually what I'm looking forward to the most, kind of dealing just taking head-on all the statements like, "That's cosmic child abuse," and all that kind of stuff. I'll deal with that in a separate video. And then, either on its own video or crammed in with one of the other ones, I'll deal with philosophical and moral objections to penal substitution. Philosophical, moral, more straight-faced, thoughtful objections as opposed to the rhetoric. And that's what we're doing today. So we're starting that today.
Thanks for joining me again. I'm Pastor Mike Winger. This is a Tuesday livestream. Every Tuesday at 5 p.m., we deal with topics of theology and apologetics. My goal and my heart is to produce free content that helps you learn how to think biblically about everything. And I am in the Pacific Standard Time Zone, PST, if anybody is interested in joining for the livestream, because you can always catch the content online. It's all free, it's all just there to edify and build up people, point them to Christ, and get them to think biblically. So let's get started. Let's dig into, because we got tons of stuff. As always, I'm gonna just, you're gonna be drinking from the fire hose tonight, lots of content. You may have to watch this video two times, six, seven times, whatever it takes. And oh yeah, let me just do this real quick. Yes, you may want to subscribe. I need you to drink some water. Okay, let's get started.
This is, this is clips. I'm gonna play three clips right now. This is how a lot of these teachers who want to undermine this, I think, biblical doctrine, the tactic they'll use to undermine it is not to go with the scriptures. In fact, usually they, they don't go deeply into the text of scripture for the most part. They, some of them do, and I'll deal with that. But more oft, more often, they go after church history and they say, "Hey, your doctrine's totally new. You, you know, Calvin made it up or whatever, 500 years ago. It's a Reformation thing. It's not really biblical. That early church didn't believe it." So let me play three quotes. And this is from Brian Zahn. And his, that was not intentional, it's just, you know, screen freezes, just sometimes look funny. Brian Zahn, in his Monster God debate, he did with Dr. Michael Brown. He is attacking penal substitutionary atonement. That's his main target in this debate. Listen to what he says about the history of it.
"See, this is, this is why this penal substitutionary atonement theory begins with Calvin. That's where it comes from. It's 500 years old. It's a product of modernity. It's not 2,000 years old." And if you don't know church history, like most people don't, you're like, "Oh, well, I didn't know. It's a product of modernity. Like, this is a new doctrine." Okay, so this is something we're gonna have to deal with right now. Now, I want to say, you know, the church fathers are not authorities on what we should believe. But it's interesting to read what they write about their beliefs when they're so far removed from our culture and our time. It's very interesting, educational to do. If they, if they say something weird, it doesn't mean we should believe it. And they do say lots of weird things, by the way. But if, in all of their writings, you can't even find a central, what you think is central to the gospel, and you can't find it in any of the writings over hundreds of years, well, then you've probably made it up. Like, that's like a good red flag to go back to your Bible and reevaluate your understanding. So let's, let's take this to task and take as a serious objection to penal substitutionary atonement.
But here's another clip. And this one's from Steve Chock. Steve Chock is one of the spearheads. He wrote a book where he calls, I'll just call it PSA, penal substitutionary atonement, where he calls PSA "cosmic child abuse." But listen to his revision of history. And I'm gonna tell you, these guys are, they're spreading false information about history. And I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna prove it to you in the livestream. "In my view, penal substitution, although so often unquestioned by many within the church and simply regarded as what the Bible teaches, was born largely out of 16th century European Reformation thinking, driven by the legal mindset of lawyer John Calvin, rather than reflecting the family-based framework of Jesus, who taught us that when we pray, we should say, 'Our Father,' not 'Our lawyer.'"
So, this is a strong objection. Hey man, it came from John Calvin. The dude made it up. And we all know Calvin has had a huge influence on reformed thinking. And reformed think, he's had a huge influence on my thinking, and probably yours too, even if you haven't realized it. So you're like, "Wow, I'm basically caught up in a, like a, a weird thing that happened 500 years ago, and I don't realize that my beliefs aren't biblical." It even goes so far as to say, Steve Chock says this, and and this is repeated all the time by these guys, that John Calvin, the reason why he came up with this weird doctrine, weird doctrine, is because he was a lawyer and he just was forcing these legal categories on the scripture. Now, of course, this is implying that it's unbiblical and that the source of the doctrine is external to the Bible. It's these weird legalities of a lawyerly mind of John Calvin. Now, that's completely false, but it's very powerful.
So let me show one more clip. This is what Brian Zahn. He's gonna give you a lesson in church history. And I encourage you not to take his lessons in church history. And here's what it is. And not to turn this into a lecture on church history, although that might not be a bad thing. And I really, it should be pointed out that the early church fathers and the early Christians taught nothing like penal substitutionary atonement theory. What they taught is generally described as Christus Victor, or Christ the Victor, where in the, not just the death, but in the incarnation, life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, we see Christ victorious over sin and death."
Okay, so what we have now, let me give you some little summary of some of the things we've got. What we've got now is the, the confusion has been sown. And I'd like to break it down and unconfuse you. Now, you're thinking, "Okay, whoa, there's these different theories of the atonement, right? And there's like penal substitutionary atonement, that's PSA. Then there's this other thing called Christus Victor." And what we just found out is PSA comes from John Calvin, and Christus Victor, this other competing view, that you think it's competing, this competing view, Christus Victor, is, is actually the ancient view that the early church held. And nobody, according to Jean, no one in the early church held the view of penal substitutionary atonement, or the elements that can constitute that view, and you know, in its, in its, its essential elements.
So this is giving you, and this is what made it hard to study this topic. The misinformation is so thick that you don't realize that they're, they're trying to get you to ask answer the wrong questions. You know, they want you to say, "Which theory of the early church is right? Penal substitution? Recapitulation? Ransom? Is it, is it on Hugo Grotius's governmental view? And Psalms, you know, satisfaction view? Or Calvin's PSA view? Which one is it?" And this, "Which one is it?" thing is totally deceptive because the early church didn't have this one consistent view that morphed and changed over time. And every time I've heard an anti-PSA guy recount church history, he just brutalizes it, in my opinion. I've heard it like from several different guys. I heard Brooks@kv do it on Remnant Radio. I heard Brian Zahn do it in the Monster God debate. I've heard Gustav Aulen do it in his book, which is central to the guys. He's a scholar, but he did it in his book. I'll come back to that a little later. These guys just are consistent. You know, yeah, Steve Chock did it in his videos and his content as well.
So they want you to think that there's a commission between these, and therefore, if an early church father supports one view, he is therefore rejecting PSA because he's into Christus Victor. I'll get into Christus Victor later in more detail. It's just the idea that Jesus had victory over Satan, sin, and the world. And I would, we would all agree with that. Like, yes, but that actually isn't even in competition with PSA. It actually is complimentary with PSA because it's about the results of the Cross, whereas PSA is about the how you achieve those results. That's the dominant, you know, element. The PSA adds to it. Alright, so now I'm getting ahead of myself. So let me, let me back up and just break it down more simplistically for us.
William Lane Craig puts it this way in his book on the atonement: "No ecumenical council ever pronounced on the subject of the atonement, leaving the church without conciliar guidance. When the Church Fathers did mention the atonement, their comments were brief and for the most part on incisive." William Lane Craig's, he did a survey of the actual, you know, the primary literature, actually reading the Church Fathers themselves. And as he was reading these things, he was saying, "Whoa, yeah, you know, they don't have one view of the atonement. And they don't even have this thorough view of the atonement. They don't have a theory of the atonement." This is the big revelation. The Church Fathers don't have a quote theory of the atonement that is carefully drawn out where they say, "Here's everything the Cross is about." They don't do it. They just talk about the Cross like normal Christians do, man. "Jesus died for me. He died for you. He gave us an example. He saved us from sin. He ransomed us back to God. He was sacrificed to suffer the punishment we deserve." Like, they say these things, but they're not giving you this theory of the atonement in these sort of technical sense. They're just not giving it.
Leon Morris, he said this, and he did scholarly work on this topic: "The atonement is vast and deep, and we needed quote all the theories." I don't even like the word theory for most of these things because as I've studied it, it's like, "Wait a minute, is, is Christus Victor really an early church theory of the atonement, or is it just we've gathered quotes of these, I was talking about the atonement, called it a theory, and tried to make it compete with other theories of the atonement?" And it's just, it's, you guys are getting jerked around, is what I'm saying. When people try to quote church history to talk to you about this issue, especially those who were against PSA, and I'm gonna try and fix that in today's video.
But first, since I've already given you so much to think about, we should go to the cat cam. There's the cat cam. There's Moxie. Yeah. All right. So hopefully you're refreshed and you're ready to dig in, because we're just getting started. There's really a lot to cover. And I, um, I hope that you will stick with me through this, because it's gonna be a survey of church fathers and what they actually taught on the atonement. And since I don't see the atonement theories as these separate theories competing with each other, but rather rather as different aspects of the atonement, which all can be true, all can be true together, except maybe for one view of Ransom theory that's really wacky. The other ones can all be true together. So when we study the Church Fathers, we're not looking for them to say, "I don't believe Christus Victor, I believe PSA." We're just looking for them to include elements of PSA, that is penalty and substitution, that achieves our atonement. So we're gonna read the Church Fathers here to try to gather these elements and see why, like William Lane Craig said, he was shocked because in the secondary literature, guys like Gustav Aulen, if you've read his work, Christus Victor, that's the book here, Christus Victor, he offered his bad rendition of history. William Lane Craig said he was shocked how bad the secondary literature misrepresents the Church Fathers. So we're gonna quote the Fathers, not the secondary literature.
Here we go. Clement of Rome, Clement of Rome, in 1995 AD. We're talking first century here, this is pretty early. He said the following: "Because of the love he felt for us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave his blood for us by the will of God, his body for our bodies, and his soul for our souls." Now, there's clearly substitution leading to life for us instead of death. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna die, but instead he dies. This is, this is the back, like you have to be doing some kind of weird, weird thing to get out of this. Let me read again: "Because of the love you felt for us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave his blood" – that's his death, right? – "for us by the will of God, his body for our bodies, his soul for our souls." It's a substitutionary death that Jesus is paying for us. That's 95 AD. Like, this is not Calvin in the 1500s.
Ignatius, in 107, he said the following: "Now he suffered all these things for our sakes, that we might be saved. We might be saved." Now, he suffered all these things is in context. This isn't Ignatius's epistle, the Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, too. You can look it up online. He says, "He suffered all these things." This is a reference to him, Jesus being nailed to the Cross and dying. And it was that we might be saved. That's substitution, like leading to salvation. Now, is he trying to say I'm in a battle about PSA? No, this is kind of like known, right? This is just the way Christians talk about the sacrifice of Christ. You have to sort of rejigger this thing to get it away from that and say, "Well, we'll get into modern theories in a different video."
Are the Epistle, Epistle of Barnabas, I'm gonna give you a bunch of them today. This was written from 70 to 135, sometime in that, in that time. So it could be first century, or it could be early second century. And you're listening here for elements of penalty and substitution to be mentioned in regarding how we're saved. If you want to track with me here for this. And he says, "The Lord endured to deliver up his flesh to corruption, that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins." That is, our sins being taken away. The fancy word is expiation. That's an important thing. Our sins are taken away so that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins, which is effected by his blood of sprinkling." Those are sacrificial terms from the Old Testament. "Blood of sprinkling." You know, meaning the legality, the legal side didn't come from Calvin. Here's Barnabas, the Epistle of Barnabas, in the late 1st or early 2nd century, saying that this sprinkling thing, which is an Old Testament concept, was fulfilled in Christ. Of course, the New Testament says the same thing. For it is written concerning him, I read on, "partly with reference to Israel and partly to us. And the scripture saith thus: He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is shorn before its shearers." So it's quoting Isaiah 53, which is one of the classic penal substitutionary texts. I'll go to that probably next week when we do our biblical survey. That's in the Epistle of Barnabas, 5.
He also goes on to say this in the same epistle: "Moreover, when fixed to the cross, he had given him to drink vinegar and gall. Hearken how the priests of the people gave previous indications of this his commandment having been written. The Lord enjoined that whosoever did not keep the fast should be put to death, because he also himself was to offer, and this is the key part, was to offer in sacrifice for our sins the vessel of the Spirit." So he, so he, it's speaking of a feast time, which connects it to Israel's sacrifices. The Epistle of Barnabas, and that Jesus was, and a sacrifice, like a feast, like a festal sacrifice. And he was offering himself a sacrifice for our sins, the vessel of the Spirit. And I'll read the rest of the quote now: "In order that the type established in Isaac, when he was offered upon the altar, might be fully accomplished." So here's like Jesus in the Old Testament stuff, Genesis 22. He's like, man, Isaac, when he went to the, when he went up onto Mount Moriah, which is Jerusalem, and he was about to be killed, that was a type, a picture of Christ. And Jesus fulfilled it in that same place and in a very similar fashion. This is, yeah, this is just clear PSA talk coming from the Epistle of Barnabas.
The Epistle of Diognetus, in the 2nd century. This is a second-century work that some people believe is one of the earliest examples of Christian apologetics, which is kind of neat. So it also reveals early thinking in regard to Christ's atonement. So it's kind of like a text written sort of like defensively to demonstrate the truth of Christianity. Okay, this epistle says, "When our wickedness had reached its height, he, Jesus himself, took on him the burden of our iniquities. He gave his Son as a ransom for us, the Holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous." Then he goes on to say the following: "Oh, sweet exchange!" This is substitution, right? "Sweet exchange! Oh, unsearchable operation! Oh, benefit surpassing all expectation, that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors." This epistle is like a clear example of the early belief that Jesus paid the price for unjust sinners so they could be forgiven of their sins. This is penal substitution. This is just what it is. And I know there's gonna be some listening, and you're trying to wiggle your way out of every one of these quotes. And I just say, it's a lot easier to just accept it for what it is. I encourage you to just hear what the church is saying. If you think penal substitution is a disgusting, hateful, horrible doctrine, listen for my video on the rhetoric when I get to that, and the misrepresentation and the strumming, because you've probably had it misrepresented to you. And I'm gonna try and clarify that as we go on.
Justin Martyr, writing, you know, while he lived, 101-65, so that's about the time he's writing somewhere in there. He says the following. Listen to this. I'm gonna read a big quote from him. "For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, 'Cursed is everyone that continued with not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.'" This is the penalty side, the punishment side. "And no one has accurately done all, nor will you venture to deny this. But some more, and some less than others, have observed the ordinances enjoined. But if those who were under this law appeared to be under a curse for not having observed all the requirements, how much more shall all nations appear to be under a curse who practiced idolatry, who seduced youth, and commit other crimes." He's saying that if the, if the Jews aren't even keeping the law, how much worse the Gentiles, who were morally worse than the Jews, at least when the Jews were trying to keep the law. Then he goes on and says, "If then the Father of all wished his Christ for the whole human family to take upon him the curses of all, the curses of all, this is penalty, knowing that if he had been crucified and was dead, he would rise, he would raise him. Why do you argue about him who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will, as if he were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although his Father caused him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God."
That's just a martyr in the Dialogue with Trypho, 95. You can look it up on your own if you like. Clear penal substitution, exchanging him for us, on our behalf, that we might be saved. He suffered the death that we deserved from God, not just the death that our anger inflicts upon each other, but the death we deserved from God because of our sin, and his justice, and His goodness.
All right, in the 200s, we have this from Origen. Now, now, I want to come back real quick to this guy before I mention Origen. This guy, Aulen, Gustav Aulen. This guy wrote the book Christus Victor. And what he did in this book was he did like a historical survey of all these various. And by the way, one of you guys sent me this book when you heard I was talking about doing PSA sometime in the future. And I'm grateful for that. It was Gary. And I appreciate Gary. You sent a note to me. But, but I did read it. And, and I was shocked at how badly he misrepresented the history. And I want to demonstrate it to you because he is really the guy that a lot of people lean on because he sort of shifted the scholarly representation of atonement against penal substitutionary atonement. According to Gustav Aulen, Origen, Origen in the 200s, is a great and important proponent of Christus Victor, and he did not promote penal substitution. Remember, because he's trying to pit them against each other. Well, I would suggest he promoted both. And here's a quote from him, from him, on the topic.
Origen says, "That one suffered death for the whole world, and that the whole world was cleansed by this sacrifice, whereas without such a sacrifice it must perforce have perished. Christ only could receive on the Cross the burden of the sins of all to carry. This burden, nothing short of His divine might was required. He took on him our sins and was smitten for our iniquities. The punishment awaiting us fell on him. Instead, we are healed by the sufferings of His Cross. His Father delivered him for our misdeeds, and he was led to the slaughter for the sins of the people." Clearly penal and substitutionary elements are in here. This, this far as Origen's concerned, you know, yeah, these are important elements. Aulen wants to make it sound like Origen's against penal substitution. He really does. And he, he's wrong. And I'm gonna show you several other guys he was wrong about. Aulen, the guy that is feeding a lot of these other guys, Chock and Zahn, and I think probably Brooks@kv, and I'm not, I'm not, I won't be mean to these guys. The thing is, we're talking about the Gospel message itself. And they're producing video content that goes out there to the world. And so I want to have content that combats that content. Why? Because it's misinformation about Jesus. Kind of a big deal, as you know.
All right, Eusebius of Caesarea. I love this quote. I really love this quote. Eusebius of Caesarea, he says the following: "Do you hear penal substitution in this? Thus, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world became a curse on our behalf." And then he went on to say, "And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf" – that's punishment, chastising is dealing with something you did wrong, that's a chastisement – "and suffered a penalty he did not owe." If there's the word penalty, he suffered a penalty he did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins. And so he became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because he received death for us and transferred to himself the scourging." Penal substitution, man. This is, this is exactly. There's the substitution. "Transferred to himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonor which would do us, and girded down upon himself the appointed curse, being made a curse for us." And if you haven't noticed, several of the guys that I'm quoting, they're quoting scripture right, just integrated through their, through their stuff. Jesus becoming a curse for us, that's about the curse of the law in Galatians. The punishment of sin went upon Christ. Eusebius, here writing in, in the early 300s, he's clearly promoting penal substitutionary view, even though, even though that view hasn't been like thoroughly expounded on. But no view has been thoroughly expounded on. No view of the atonement, not in great detail, like it was, you know, a thousand years after the Cross. It just hasn't happened yet. But he, it's clearly there.
He also said this: "But since being in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in the flesh." The words quoted are rightly used. "And in that he made our sins his own from his love and benevolence toward us." Wow. I, I think this is neat stuff. That's from Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica 10.1, if you want to look it up.
Hillary of Poitiers, if I'm pronouncing that right. Hillary of Poitiers said the following. This was in 368. We're sort of marching through the centuries, right? Little samples of different people who all taught similar things that reinforce a penal substitutionary view. Let me read this quickly from Hillary. "It was from the curse that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, when, as the Apostle says, 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' For it is written, 'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree' (that's Galatians 3:13). Thus, he offered himself to the death of the accursed, that he might break the curse of the law, offering himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, a presentation of himself to God the Father." This is not from Calvin, okay? "In order that by means of a voluntary victim, the curse attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be removed." In other words, you know, because he dies in our place, now we're set free. The, the requirement of the law has been met. That we can now be set free. Like Jesus said, "I've come to fulfill the law and the prophets." Well, that included the curse of the law, that we might be set free from that. That's on his Homilies on the Psalms, 13. And you can get that and check it out on your own.
Vincentius lived in the fourth century as well, 300-373. And he's another one of Aulen's guys. He says, "And this man, this is another guy, he was a Christus Victor, not PSA guy." But again, this is deceptive because many people are both. They believe Jesus is victorious, and he was the sacrifice for our sins. Okay, let me read on. Athanasius said the following: "Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father." That's important. Offered it to the Father. It's not just a model or a moral example. It is a moral example. It's not just, or only, a moral example, right? It's an offering to the Father, a sacrifice, like of the Old Testament kind. This he did out of sheer love for us. I read on. "So that in his death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished, because having fulfilled in his body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men." This he did that he might turn again to incorruption, men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of his resurrection. Thus he would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire." In other words, it's fancy, it's thoughtful, it's carefully written, makes you think about it. You might would hear it a couple times, playback 10 seconds or whatever. But yeah, in other words, penal substitution, and not only penal substitution, there's also other elements that are in there too. We don't deny those. We're just saying penal and substitution are required in this concept.
Let me give you another quote from Athanasius, because this is a big deal. He, Aulen puts him up as like a big chief example of someone who's not PSA. Here's another one from him. In his Fourth, in his Four Discourses Against the Arians, he says, "Formerly, the world, as guilty, was under judgment from the law. But now the Word, the Word has taken on himself the judgment, and having suffered, excuse me, and having suffering in the body for all, has bestowed salvation to all." There's a judgment from the law, and he took it on himself, right? Now, some want to say, Jesus on the Cross, he's only suffering the wrath of man. Now, don't get me wrong, man's wrath is involved there, I don't deny that. But when they say "only suffering the wrath of man," they mean there's nothing to do with God's judgment that Christ is, is taking upon himself. And that seems inconsistent, at least with the Church Fathers. And we'll get to the biblical case later on. I could share my, assure more. Let me get another Athanasius quote. Let's see. He says, "And then, for as when, as when John says, 'The Word was made flesh,' we do not conceive the whole Word himself to be flesh, but to have put on flesh and become a man." In other words, he's still God. "And on hearing 'Christ hath become a curse for us,' and 'He hath made him sin for us who knew no sin'," he's quoting the New Testament here. "We do not simply conceive this, that the whole Christ has become a curse and sin, but that he has taken on him the curse which lay against us, as the Apostle has said, has redeemed us from the curse, and has carried, as Isaiah has said, our sins, and as Peter has written, has borne them in the body on the wood." He was carrying our sin, and in an atoning way, in a sacrificial way. That's the idea. Okay, there's more there.
But I just want to say now, on Gustav Aulen, I won't keep harping on the harping on this guy, but, but he's the scholarly source of a lot of this divergence from PSA, at least as far as I know, on his stuff. I'll say Jeremy Treat, another scholar, did work on his content, and his book, The Crucified King, he says this of Gustav Aulen: "The problem with this historical summary, as heuristic ally convenient as it may be, is that it's simply not true." And that's in his book, The Crucified King, page 178 and 179. And he's not even alone in that view. I read his little book, and I was shocked at how, because I had already studied some of the Church Fathers, and I'm like reading his, going, "Wait, that's not even remotely accurate." I just slowly got more and more disappointed that this is the guy people go to. Gustav Aulen. People need to ignore his, his stuff on this topic, I think, or else they're gonna be radically confused. They're gonna think they're rejecting PSA for good reasons when they're just being tricked about history.
I got more quotes for you though. Okay, so, and just a reminder, I'm gonna go to some of your guys' questions at the very end of the stream. It's gonna be a little bit of a longer stream, but that's because I don't push the stream longer because I feel like it, but because this is just how much content I've got to share with you on this topic. I want to put it in one video so it's right there, accessible. You can always pause and come back later, watch more. And maybe you need to do that right now. Go take a walk, come back, and remember your spot at this point in the video to listen to the rest. But here we go.
Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory of Nazianzus, another guy Gustav Aulen says he's a Christus Victor guy, not a penal substitution guy. Right? Here's what he says. Gregory of Nazianzus: "As for my sake, he was called a curse, who destroyed my curse and sin, who taketh away the sin of the world, and became a new Adam to take the place of the old. Just so he makes my disobedience his own, and as head of the whole body." Just like Adam represented all of us when he eats of the fruit, and Jesus represents all of us when he goes to the Cross. Adam brings shame, you know, and bondage towards all of us. Jesus brings forgiveness and freedom towards all of us. This is what he's getting at. "As long then as I am disobedient," he goes on to the end, "rebellious both by denial of God and by my passion, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account." So there's clear indications of substitution and representation in the content of Gregory Nazianzus. It's penal because he's speaking of the curse of Galatians 3:13, that a lot of these guys quote Galatians 3:13 in regards to what Jesus did on the Cross, rightly so. It's an important passage. Clearly the curse is the penalty for the law, and that was upon Christ. He's suffering the penalty for what I did, according to these Church Fathers.
Ambrose of Milan, another one. I've got a few more for you. Ambrose of Milan, from 339 to 397, that's when he's alive, right? So he's later 4th century. And here's what he says in his his work, Flight from the World, recorded in The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 65, Chapter 7, Section 44, pages 314 and 315. All right, there you go, just in case you needed that information. Ambrose of Milan says the following: "And so then Jesus took flesh that he might destroy the curse of sinful flesh, and he became for us a curse that a blessing might overwhelm a curse, righteousness might overwhelm sin, forgiveness might overwhelm the sentence." Notice it's not just overwhelmed. This, you know, they want to say that Jesus is, some people want to say Jesus is an example of dying while others are sinning against him. It's just overwhelmingly encouraging and helpful to us to learn sacrificial death like that. And it is, but that's not all it is, right? It's also a sentence from the Father on us, on our, I should say, from God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, it's a sentence of judgment on us that God comes and takes upon himself to show his love to us. So it's more than just a moral example. I read on. So he says, "It might overwhelm this sentence, and life might overwhelm death. He also took up death that the sentence might be fulfilled and satisfaction given for the judgment, the curse placed on sinful flesh, even to death. Therefore, nothing was done contrary to the sentence when the terms of that sentence were fulfilled, for the curse was unto death, but grace is after life." Ambrose is trying to get at the point that Jesus, he satisfied the sentence, the death sentence that was upon humans, so that we could then justifiably be forgiven and freed from that consequence. You could just say, you know, "Why did you just have to die?" I mean, well, partially because God has given the death sentence for sin. And so God's not gonna renege on what he said. He's not gonna go back home on his promise, on his, "You're gonna die if you sin." No, he's gonna fulfill through Christ the death that that requires. Jesus's love for us.
John Chrysostom. Here's another one. Another Gustav Aulen guy. He says he's a C.V. guy, he's a Christus Victor guy, not a penal substitution guy. He says, "Men ought to have been punished, but God did not do so. They ought to have perished, but he gave his Son in their stead." So instead of us being punished and dying, Jesus goes in our stead to do what? The implication is to be punished, or receive the punishment. I'll come back to, was did Jesus get punished, or did he just simply receive the punishment that we deserve? That's a different debate. We'll come back to that later. People who hold a PSA can have either one, either view on that.
The next quote from John Chrysostom is this: "A king seeing a robber about to receive his due, sends his beloved and only son to death, and lays on him not only the penalty, but also the crime, as this. And this he does to save the guilty one and to promote him afterwards to high dignity." Now, this is in the 300s, late 300s. He's writing, John Chrysostom, he's writing the late 300s. And he is saying there's a penalty that was given to Christ. This is clear. But you will never hear this from guys like Boyd and Zahn. And I don't, well, I'll throw out Boyd in there. I'm not confident Boyd does this revisionism thing. I haven't checked into his work enough to say that. So I, I don't want to say that. I'm guessing he does, but I could maybe I'm totally wrong. So I'll say Zahn definitely does. Chock definitely does. And Gustav Aulen definitely does. And a lot of the guys who, who quote and have sources in these guys, they also do it. It's deceptive.
Basil the Great, or Basil the Great, lived from 332-379. He says the following: "By the blood of Christ, through faith, we have been cleansed from all sin." By the blood of Christ, through faith, we've been cleansed. So what my sins are getting dealt with, washed away by Jesus's blood. This is Old Testament terminology. This has to do with sacrificial dying for sins, for expiation stuff. So there's elements of penal substitution in that too. And that's another guy, Basil the Great, who Gustav Aulen says is a Christus Victor guy. To set him against penal substitution. They wouldn't act like everybody in the early church was Christus Victor against PSA or something like that. And this is just deceptive. This is deceptive to you, and it's dishonest, and it's dumb.
All right, Augustine of Hippo, another supposedly.
Christus Victor guy and Gustav Outland's book, he tries to set against PSA. He said the following: Augustine of Hippo, this was in the early 400s. He says, "But as Christ endured death as man and for man, so also Son of God, as he was everliving in his own righteousness, but dying for our defenses, he submitted his man and for man to bear the curse which accompanies death. Jesus's bearing upon him that curse."
This is just good New Testament theology, good Old Testament theology. The point is, we're singing in the church fathers, reading the same Bible you are. They're coming to sound conclusions. You should, in this regard, anyway. Augustine of Hippo goes on and says, "And as he died in the flesh which he took in bearing our punishment, bearing our punishment, there's penal substitution. So also, while ever blessed in his own righteousness, he was cursed for our offenses in the death which he suffered in bearing our punishment."
Supposedly, Augustine of Hippo is against PSA. That's what you'd think reading Gustav Outland's work. But no, no, he's actually teaching it. Because Christus Victor in an old sense, in a church history sense, and penal substitution are sisters. You know, they're not opposed to each other. There's more I could quote from him. He says, in his Exposition of Psalm 51, "For even the Lord was subjected to death, but not on account of sin. He took upon him our punishment, and so loosed our guilt."
So Jesus died not because of his own sins, but he was, he was punished. He took the punishment. It does actually, he was, he was punished. He took the punishment. Specifically, he took the punishment. So he went through the punishments of our sin, and that's what gets rid of our guilt.
Now, this is what Gustav Outland, I'm going to harp on him some more. Gustav Outland says about Augustine, let me quote him. He says that Augustine, in Augustine's opinion, the atonement is "one divine work. It is one divine work, the continuity of which is not interrupted by the idea of an offering made to God from man's side, from below." That's what he says about Augustine.
This is just, this is just deceitful. So Augustine has no sense in which Jesus is being offered to God? Well, let me read what Augustine actually says on this topic from his work, *Enchiridion*, 1033. You can look that up on your own. You put X 0.33 to find it. And then en CHR ir ID IO n. There you go. In *Enchiridion*. And before I read that, there's the cat. She's like, we can execute for you right now. All right. This is what Augustine said. See if it sounds. There she is. All right. See if it sounds like the idea that Outland gives everyone in the world, which is, he's a very popular guy, that Augustine had no concept of Christ being offered to God.
Now, quoting Augustine: "Now, as men were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin, there was indeed, there was need for a mediator, that is, for a reconciler, who by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices of the law and prophets were types, should take away this wrath." Now, when God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to him such a disturbed feeling as exists in the mind of an angry man, but we call his just displeasure against sin by the name anger, a word transferred by analogy from human emotions.
So, not only is Augustine saying Jesus is a sacrifice, which Outland just is deceitful about, intentionally or not, I mean, how could you? I mean, I don't know, whatever issue is, but at any rate, he's deceitful about that. Not only is that the case, but he speaks of God's wrath, and he makes sure to make a defense for those who think that this means God's petty, God has petty wrath. He's like, no, it's God's just displeasure toward sin because God is good. His wrath flows from his goodness.
All right, another quote from Cyril of Alexandria, another guy. Outland says doesn't support PSA. He says, and I quote, and this is in the early 400s: "The only-begotten was made man, born, born body by nature, at enmity with death, and became flesh so that, enduring the death which was hanging over us as the result of our sin, he might abolish sin. And further, that he might put an end to the accusations of Satan, inasmuch as we have paid in Christ himself the penalties for the charges of sin against us. For he bore our sins, and he was wounded because of us, according to the voice of the prophets. Are we not healed by his wounds?"
He goes on to say, this Cyril of Alexandria: "This chastisement which was due on fallen sinners descended on him." Chastisement, punishment, right? Jesus clearly PSA, PSA, PSA. This is in his commentary on Isaiah 53. You can check that out. Most of the stuff is available online for free. You can, and I'll put an article, I or I will put an article, if I haven't yet, from The Master's Seminary on this topic, and you can check it out there. And I'll even put another article in the video description from Gary Williams, where he defends the idea that the Church Fathers, you know, taught penal substitution, going through an actual, slow exegesis of these quotes.
There's more I could give you guys. There's more I could quote, guys. The bottom line is the anti-PSA crowd. As I bring it all together now, conclusions, summary thoughts on this stuff. The anti-PSA crowd, they regularly distort church history. They act like there are these competing atonement theories when they're actually complementary aspects of the atonement. They act like it came from Calvin or Anselm in the 1100s or late, late 1000s. For the Church Fathers, and when people write books, they somehow, the anti-PSA people just ignore them. And this is why I want to make this video because it's deceitful, and they're trying to jerk you around and change your theology with deceitful information about church history that, I don't know how else to put it, this is kind of a big deal.
Joseph Schmid, or Schmidtrost, it's in my TR OS, I don't know how to pronounce it, but Joseph Schmidtrost surveyed the Church Fathers for himself, and he wrote the following in an article published in a peer-reviewed journal called *Thought*, Fordham University Quarterly. So this is what he said in his article: "By way of summary, one may say that the sacrificial theory of salvation, combined with the idea of penal substitution, constituted the mainstream of thinking in the 4th century, and that the motif of the Isaiah an servant, the servant from Isaiah 53, the Isaiah an servant of Yahweh, made up its commonly accepted background. Though innocent himself, Christ took upon himself our sins and accepted the punishment due to us for them. By becoming man, the new Adam, he had become the representative of all men. Thus, as high priest and victim, in offering his life as a propitiatory sacrifice, reconciled men to God."
And I just, I want to like, I want to drop a microphone when I read that because this is, it's beautiful, and it's wonderful. It's just the reality of church history. See, the thing is, most of you have never read the Church Fathers. So when a guy like Zahn, or a guy like in chalk, Steve Chalk, comes out and they tell you their rendition of church history, you just take it for granted that they're giving you a right rendition of church history. So when they want to undermine a doctrine, and then they revise church history, revisionism, they give you a fake version. They can really shatter your confidence in something that you've believed because it's in the scriptures. And I think that's, yeah, that's why I did this video. So we would get it. We'll get to more stuff in the future.
I want to go to your guys' questions right now, and I've already got a bunch of them. So you probably don't have to send more because I've already got a number of questions. Just letting you guys know, you kind of been feeding them in as that, as the conversation's been going here. So here's your guys' questions, and hopefully, they'll be on this topic.
"Why would it please God to crush Jesus? Isaiah 53, verse 10. I understand the justice, but struggle with the idea of it being what God wanted or liked."
Well, you know, I think that what you can do, and I will actually go through Isaiah 53 probably next week when I do my biblical survey. That's my plan to do that next week, biblical survey of the data on how the cross saves us. Sorry, my phone jumped around. But I will say this, Isaiah 53:10, where it talks about how, how it pleased God, that part of this has to do with your understanding of God. If you, if you allow the scripture to give you the concept of God as perfect and holy and just and good and righteous, and every motive of his heart is good and right, if you have this solid understanding of God, when you hear that it pleased God, it will immediately dispel any images of a malicious God who's enjoying suffering or something wicked like that. Instead, you'll see this in the context of Jesus. This was, this was it. It achieved the accomplished thing to reconcile us to God. Right? Me, me dying. You know, God says, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." She says, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." That's a great verse to compare with this one. Well, God doesn't take pleasure in the wicked dying. He doesn't enjoy. There's no malice in his heart like that. But with Jesus's death, he was pleased because it was the sacrifice that achieved the justice and mercy that you could be given to bring you to him. So, let me think of it this way. We're asking you to think of this way, I guess. When you look at the cross, are you pleased by what Jesus did for you? Are you pleased? Does it bring you joy? It hurts you, but it brings you joy to see what Christ did to save you. And I think it's in the same sense it does for God. For the Father.
Star Walters has a question. "This might get convoluted, but how can eternal conscious torment be the teaching of Scripture if the doctrine of penal substitution is true?"
That has to do with the extent of the atonement. So let me, and I have a video on that. Maybe the mods can throw it in the live chat. But or you could just, you could just go to YouTube and type Mike Winger limited atonement, and I got like two videos on it. But the extent of the atonement is the question. Jesus died in our place. Does that mean that at the moment of his death, everyone he died for is automatically saved? Well, the Calvinists would say yes. Therefore, he only really died for certain people, limited, you know, in the scope of who he died for. I would say, oh no, he died for all people. And the limit is not who he died for. It's who it is applied to. Limited application. And I have a whole video going through that in great detail on limited atonement. So limited application. And the gateway to have it applied is you put your trust in Christ. You trust in him, and you become, he, you know, puts you inside him, so to speak. You're in Christ, and now the benefits of his, his death and his atonement are bestowed on you because of your faith. And this is supported by Ephesians, which tells us that even the saved people were once children of wrath. This is after the cross, they're still children of wrath. Well, even though Jesus died, they're still children. Yes, but when they believe in Jesus, then they become children of God. Faith is the thing that changes it from potentially saving to actually saving. All right.
Number three, "Jumping like a monkey," says Mike, "how important is the physical suffering of Jesus in terms of PSA?"
I, I don't, okay. So if I'm making like a bare-bones case for a penal substitutionary atonement, I don't think I need to argue about that. So this is a great, interesting side question. I think I can say, hey, it was definitely penal, it was definitely substitutionary. He was there also representing me. It was about, you know, all that stuff. But then the question could be, okay, but how much of Jesus's suffering was important? And I think it was probably important. I think that it was the shame of it, showing God's displeasure towards sin, showing judgment upon wickedness, that that was part of the elements that are in there. But I don't think it, I don't try to say like, well, he had to be hit exactly this number of times, he had to have exactly this much pain. I don't know. I didn't, I wouldn't go there. I think that's kind of weird, at least for me. I wouldn't know how to answer those kinds of questions. But I do think his suffering was important. And Isaiah 53 seems to talk about various aspects of his suffering, not just his death. So a quick death wouldn't have done it the same as a drawn-out suffering. The demonstration of God's justice is different that way.
PSA, this is number four. "Teaches that Jesus died in my place. If eternal conscious torment is true, don't the damned never in fact die in the same way that Jesus died? Doesn't this give some legitimacy to the claims of conditional immortality proponents?"
Okay, let me really try to wrap my head around this. All right. If eternal conscious torment is true, don't the damned never in fact die in the same way that Jesus died? Oh, okay, okay, I get what you're saying. Yeah, if people cease to exist, if they just get it, no. I would think it would be the other way around. That if people, if people cease to exist, if the annihilation happens, then that's something that didn't happen to Jesus on the cross. He didn't cease to exist for us. So I, I feel like it'd be the way around. And forgive me if I'm not understanding the question. It's, it's an interesting question to think about it some more.
"Happy earthy bites," says, "Can someone please explain how God can justly punish Jesus for sins he didn't commit?"
Yeah, well, I'm going to get into that when we get into philosophical objections. But I'll say briefly, one thing to consider is this. The, the idea, you know, they say God can't punish Jesus because Jesus is innocent, and punishing the innocent is on, is is unjust. You can't punish the innocent. But this is different than that because it is actually God himself who comes. And that's one element. It's God himself who's taking on the punishment for us. It's not like the Father separated from the Son, like ontologically over there are different beings now or something. No, it's God who's taking the punishment upon himself. He's doing it voluntarily, as opposed to being forced. Also, it's representationally, which, which is to say he goes representing us. That's really important. We're identified with him, and we stay identified with him forever. So it's relational. This concept I should unpack that more in the future. That's another element that changes your understanding of this. And another element is that we, we, you know, you can say that the sins are punished in Christ without saying that Jesus is punished in the same sense like he was an innocent man. It's rather my sins that are that are placed upon him, imputed to him, and so he suffers punishment. Now, if you're going to say he can't suffer punishment, then you also kind of have to say, well, then God also can't forgive people who haven't been punished. That's in anyway. That's another thing I'll get into that later when I get to the philosophical objections, because I think that's gonna be a whole another video.
Dustin Neely, "Who is Jesus paying the penalty to?"
Um, that's an interesting way of phrasing it. Who is Jesus paying the penalty to? Well, he is, he is offering himself as an offering to God. This is to God that he's offering himself. Now, that's, I think, what scripture teaches. So I would say, Jesus is paying the penalty to God. And now he is God. We don't deny the Trinity in here in any way, shape or form. We see him, God taking upon himself the penalty for our sin. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like there's more I should say on that, but it's not coming to mind.
Matthew George, "Mike, is the sacrifice of Abraham and his son a foreshadow of a penal substitution atonement when the ram is provided in place of his son?"
I believe it's a foreshadow of substitution, but I don't see penalty in there in the Genesis 22 passage. Where's the penalty aspect in the text? I want to see it in the text, right? I don't see penalty, guys. Definitely see substitution. And then a prophecy about how its future, because Abraham, after offering Isaac, he says, "Oh, in the mount of the Lord, it shall be," future tense, "it shall be provided." And the location is specified, Jerusalem, which is where Jesus was doing that.
Jeff Ferrier, "How did Augustine address this? Is he Calvin's influence?"
I can't speak to who Calvin's influence influences are, but I did, I think I quoted you some stuff from Augustine's. So maybe that was asked earlier. Yeah, so I quoted a few things from Augustine of Hippo. Hopefully, that will help you out.
David Missity, "How do you respond to the question that if Jesus paid the price for our sins, then God didn't really forgive because his wrath was still poured out? It's just that Jesus took it. Where forgiveness means that the crime is pardoned and no penalty is dealt. Some say that PSA is incompatible with forgiveness because the crime was not pardoned, it's just that Jesus paid for it instead of man."
So actually, David, I'll get into this again with the objections that the more sober-minded objections to PSA in a later video. But my short answer, real quick, is most pardons, and now we're saying, hey, we're hitting our human understanding of law. We're trying to say God wouldn't do it that way because we don't, we wouldn't do it that way. We wouldn't call that forgiveness. But actually, most legal pardons, most of them, the majority, they happen after a sentence is fulfilled. So someone serves the sentence, and then they receive the pardon for what they've done. This is how it normally happens. And so that's consistent. That's consistent. Forgiveness can be given after a person has made amends. "Okay, I forgive you." That can happen. The trick is, you didn't make amends. Jesus did. And so God is just and forgives you at the same time.
Ally Landy, "What extent does penal substitution affect us physically presently? As far as Jesus taking our sin and the results such as sickness?"
That's a different question. As far as sickness goes, I'll say this because this is where it gets into healing debates, right? With Jesus, he died. His stripes were healed. And so that does refer to physical healing. It, I think it's first Peter, but it also refers to just healing in general. And so the statement from, you know, healers, modern-day hyper-healing movement, I might call it, because I believe in healing and I pray for healing and I have seen some, not as much as I'd like, but I've definitely seen some real healings in my life. But should I expect it every time and say, hey, because of Jesus's death, I should have healing every time? Every time we pray, we should expect healing. We should, you know, insist on it based upon the death of Christ? Well, I would say that Jesus's stripes heal us. By the same token, his death saves us from death. But I'm still dying. And so if I'm really going to have that view, then nobody should even die. I mean, death is kind of bad, right? Like death is definitely the opposite of healing. So any healing movement that says Jesus has stripes, means you always get healed, but they're okay with anybody dying ever, I don't care when you're a hundred and twenty, you die. Like, you should never die if you have that theology. And so I think that this is clear. The New Testament talks about how it's okay that we're falling asleep, you know, or dying before the coming of the Lord. God will bring us come and come for us and resurrect us and all that. There's no expectation in the New Testament for healing every single time and every scenario and and the avoidance of death entirely. There's some thoughts on that.
Emelia Via Anna's, "If penal substitution was talked about by the Church Fathers, and how did they answer a common objection that the wrath from the Father to the Son splits the Trinity?"
Um, I'll deal with that later. I'm trying to think of, I'm trying to think about what I've read in the Church Fathers that specifically was about the idea that there's a split in the Trinity. There is no separation in the Trinity. This is important when we understand penal substitution. We're not saying that we say the Father turned his face away or something like that. We're not saying that the Father and Son were separate beings because then we're like, how does what did, what even is God now? Like, God is triune in his very nature, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There can't be that true separation ontologically in their actual being. That just can't happen. Now, I don't know off the top of my head. I don't know what Church Fathers might have said about that. I'm sorry. But I would definitely say that about it.
"Doesn't Hebrews 10:26 through 28 promote Christus Victor theology?"
Let's go to that passage. Let's go to that passage. Hebrews 10, verse 26. Does this promote Christus Victor theology? And he says, "Not saying I'm a Christus Victor guy, but hoping to cover all the bases. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses." Is that really what you meant? I don't know if that was the verse you meant, or maybe you'd maybe grabbed the wrong, the wrong chapter, or maybe I'm just not seeing it because I'm just reading it while I'm live and I think about lots of things. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that was the verse you met. But let me say this. Let me say this, and I will do a video. I think I hope you guys will stick with me for the whole series. I think it could be really good. I will do a video eventually on, I think the models, the different theories of the atonement. And I can say this right now, Christus Victor is a true theory of the atonement. It's accurate. It's like, it's right. And I'm trying to bring up a verse to share with you. Let me see. Hebrews, or Colossians 2:15. It says that Jesus "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them on the cross." So he beat the rulers and authorities, or that he conquered Satan, or that he destroyed and defeated death, or that he beat over the world. You know, this is the idea. I don't know the Hebrews verse that you were. And there's another Hebrews verse in Hebrews 2, verse 14: "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things. This is Christus Victor. That through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he's able to save those who are being tempted." And here we've got Christus Victor and penal substitution being taught together in the scripture because, well, they're both true. So Bible sprout, I'd say hold the Christus Victor. But but my one thing I just guard against is this, a lot of guys nowadays like Brian Zahn, well say they're holding to Christus Victor, and it's this sort of classic view from the early church and in the scriptures, but they substitute it with a sort of different version of Christus Victor that has more to do with political things, I think, than it does the stuff that the New Testament is talking about. So which Christus Victor do you mean?
Okay, last cut, last few questions, and we're done for the night.
Joelle says, "You describe Jesus's atonement as an expiation. Jesus is designated as our propitiation. Do you believe it is important to draw a distinction between these two forms of the atonement?"
I think, I wouldn't call forms, maybe, but different aspects. Yeah. So expiation, think of it like you have an arrow pointing up and an arrow pointing down. Right? The arrow pointing down from Jesus down to me, this this expiates me. It gets rid of my sin. That's expiation. Just think it's ex, means like out of, like I'm gonna get this sin out of me. As I want to expiate, cleanse my sin. Jesus at the cross does that. But there's an arrow pointing up, and that is dealing with God's justice and God's command and the, the curse of the law. That's not, that's something that's affecting me, but it's something that has to be dealt with with God. And so Jesus is propitiation as a sacrifice to deal with the justice that that demands my death, that is in God's very nature of a goodness. So there's the two. Propitiation goes up, expiation goes down.
And Lawson says, "Last question. I met you at the unbelievable conference and I fangirled and forgot to mention that your content was a large reason why I became a Christian. So I just wanted to say thank you."
Lawson, you just made my night. I'm not kidding. To hear that you were one of the, I was one of the influences that helped lead you to Jesus Christ. And just know this, it's not me. It's just the truth of God's Word just being proclaimed and shared and put out there, and the Lord using it in your life. But I rejoice, rejoice to hear it. That makes my night for sure. And it's my favorite question right there.
So if you guys, if you love this content, you love this ministry, I do not want you to ever feel pressured to give. Ever. I really mean that. But if you want to be one of those few people who's like, hey, I have the money and I have a heart for your ministry, Mike, then, you know, you can check the link or go to BibleThink.org. There's a link in the description for it, and you can offer, you know, donations to help support it because this is my full-time thing. And I want to make sure everything I make is free so that all those who, like me for most of my life, couldn't afford any Christian resources, you'll have it for absolutely free because I know you all got a cell phone. So anyway, that's about it. I'll, I'll check you guys out next week when I intend to cover the next part in this series, the biblical case, the biblical case for penal substitutionary atonement. Until then, don't forget to check the context of the scriptures when people are quoting these things to you. Look at it in context. Don't forget to check the actual quotes from the Church Fathers and realize that these theories of the atonement are complimentary, not in competition, like some of the anti-PSA crowd wants you to think. God bless you.