August 27, 2025 • 36 mins
In this bonus episode, Brody, Zach, Rob, and JB sit down to discuss penal substitutionary atonement. Some modern voices are reviving old critiques, calling the idea that Jesus bore God’s wrath on the cross abusive and outdated. At the Fall Be Strong Men's Conference, we’re addressing this head-on. The Snowbird team will unpack the biblical truth of penal substitutionary atonement—how Jesus willingly took our place, satisfied God’s justice, and made a way for sinners to be saved.
This isn’t just theology for theologians—it’s the core of the gospel. Come join us as we stand firm for a doctrine that shows the beautiful harmony of God’s love and justice.
Be Strong Men’s Conference 2025
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bible,culture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I wanted to do this bonus episode.
I wanted to do this bonusepisode Today we're recording to
discuss a breakdown from thesummer, but y'all are going to
see this week an emphasis and afocus on our social media
(00:42):
platforms where we're changingthe discussion or the theme or
the focus of Be Strong.
This fall, in 2026, fall BeStrong we were slated to talk
about a doctrine called penalsubstitutionary atonement and
we're changing that.
We're moving that up to 25.
This is a last-minute change,but we feel like it's necessary
and so, before we get into thisconversation again, it's a bonus
(01:03):
episode.
We'll keep this brief.
I want to talk about why we'remaking that change, sort of why
now, because this is somethingthat continually comes up in
Christian circles, theologicalcircles, but it's important to
us.
It's important enough thatwe're making that change.
We're going to address it atthe 25 Fall Be Strong Conference
(01:28):
rather than the 26th, and so Iwant to start off by just
talking about what the doctrineis.
I'm going to let JB talk aboutthat and then I'm going to give
a little bit of a recent modernhistory of sort of the conflict
or controversy around thisdoctrine, and then we're going
to talk a little bit about whatit, what are the what, what's
(01:51):
the dexterity and the layers toit, and and sort of uh, drive
that towards the be strongconference that's coming up next
month.
So anyway, that's a lot goingon, but, um, but, so why don't
you?
Let's start off with JB, just asimple layman's, laywoman's
work and definition of penalsubstitutionary atonement.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, Okay.
So before we hit record, wewere joking and I said that
before really working atSnowbird.
I thought penal substitutionaryatonement was something to do
with circumcision.
I hope I'm not the only one outthere that thinks that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Surely not Little, I think little still thinks that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But Snowbird does a great job.
We've talked a lot about thison the podcast before but in
those two weeks of stafftraining all of our summer staff
goes through and we cover a lotof doctrinal things like penal,
substitutionary atonement.
They do a great job ofexplaining that so it's been
super helpful for me.
But basically I'll break itdown as penal is penalty um
(02:49):
substitution, obviouslysubstitution taking someone's
place, and then atonement um islike the covering, so basically
um the gospel essentially ofJesus dying on the cross for our
penalty, paying the price, liketaking our place.
And yeah, I might have clammedup a little bit.
(03:11):
No, it's good, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That works.
The only thing I would just addfor clarity is Christ is dying
in our place as the one who isbearing the wrath of God, is
dying in our place as the onewho is bearing the wrath of God,
which is why I think which is abig part of his prayer in the
garden when he said if it'spossible to let this cup pass
for me, it's the fact that he'salways been in perfect harmony
(03:35):
and fellowship with the father,and now he's about to receive
the wrath of the father for sinthat he's never committed, and
so the weight of that isoverwhelming to Christ in that
moment.
And one of the arguments thatis made against penal
substitutionary atonement aswhat theologians call an
(03:56):
atonement theory or atonementdoctrine, of which there are
different opinions and differenttheories or doctrines, which
we'll get into a little bit.
But one of the things that Ithink is wrongly applied to
penal substitutionary atonementby its opponents is the idea
(04:17):
that it pits Jesus, the son,against God the father.
It pits them against oneanother where we would say oh no
, no, it's perfectly harmonious.
It is the will of the Father todo this and it is the will of
the Son to do this.
Jesus said no one takes my lifefrom me.
I lay it down.
One of the arguments against itis and I went down a rabbit
(04:40):
hole Saturday listening toopponents of this and they say
you've got God.
I would listen to a pastorstanding in a pulpit.
I don't know who the guy was,but he stood in the pulpit and
he said you can't have the sonunder the wrath of the father
because now they're not inharmony, they're not in
fellowship and what we would sayis they're in perfect
fellowship.
Maybe for us, the clearestpicture that we have in the
(05:04):
Bible of the fellowship and theoneness between the father and
son is the cross of Christ,where Jesus willfully, lovingly
and knowingly embraces ourjudgment, our wrath.
God's just.
Uh, I don't.
I don't want to go, I don'twant to drop a bunch of names,
(05:29):
um, but I did.
I've got a note at thebeginning here saying why are we
addressing this now?
Um, so let me give a quickhistory of snowbird me, my
personal sort of journey withthis, and then I'm going to.
I'm going to push thediscussion across the table.
In 2008, I attended a conference.
(05:51):
It was a Together for theGospel conference, and the topic
of that conference was penalsubstitutionary atonement.
I heard in person JohnMacArthur and RC Sproul at the
same conference.
Both have gone to be at theLord and both taught a different
aspect.
I don't remember now a lotabout that conference.
(06:11):
Piper preached I heard Sproul,macarthur, piper, all at that
conference.
Cj Mahaney preached, moellerpreached, and it was different
aspects of the atonement.
Because it is one of the thingsthat is important to understand
is this is something thatvolumes have been written on and
(06:31):
people will try to condense itinto a 20-minute debate or an
hour-long debate, but I rememberleaving there realizing this
doctrine is important, but I hadalways assumed everyone
believed this.
I thought if you're a Christian, you believe that you might not
call it penal substitutionaryatonement, but you believe that
Jesus bore the wrath of God foryour sin.
(06:53):
And I realized in thatconference a lot of people don't
hold to that and so it hasresurfaced at different times
throughout history.
But going back to the 90s,there was a movement called the
Emergent church.
Have you ever heard of that, jb?
It's before your time.
So we were these guys and likewe were kind of coming of
theological age when this washappening.
(07:14):
And and in the 90s this, thismovement emerged out of orthodox
evangelical christianity thattried to contextualize this is a
super cliff note version triedto over contextualize
theological doctrine to make itfit into in a more palatable way
into society and culture inmodern times.
(07:35):
And what ended up happening isthey ended up.
This movement abandonedhistorical christian doctrine
that we've held to since thechurch fathers of the first and
second century.
Now it eventually derailed andwent under because no, nothing
that comes against this is goingto stand.
I want to be clear when youcome against the person and work
of Jesus, you will.
(07:56):
It won't stand.
The movements will rise andfall.
The movement of the gospel hasbeen ongoing since Jesus walked
the earth and really sincebefore then, into the Old
Testament, all the way back tothe garden.
So movements come and go, butthey're repackaged differently,
(08:17):
and so what's recently emergedis John Mark Comer, who some of
our listeners will be familiarwith, made a statement in a
tweet about a book.
The book is called Lamb of theFree.
Does that sound right?
Lamb of the Free?
Written by a guy who's like aliberal Bible professor, and in
(08:39):
it he basically debunked.
He said that this book dealt afinal death blow or knockout
knockout blow to penalsubstitutionary atonement.
So, um, it caught me off guardbecause I, when it was brought
to my attention, I it was, uh,gavin ortland, who I was.
I watched his stuff and he hadtalked about it, and so I just
(09:00):
want to, in in the next fewminutes, turn these guys loose
to talk about what is theimportance of this doctrine and
why is it so important that wehold to it and that we push back
against people that reject it,and why, at Snowbird, this is a
hill we will die on.
We will never shrink back fromdefending this doctrine, and we
(09:21):
don't have to because the wordof God defends it.
This is not a cultural issue,um, and we don't have to cause.
The word of God defends it.
This is not a cultural issue.
It's not like, uh, we'll, wewon't shrink back from defending
a certain type of music orworship style or Bible
translation.
We'll shrink back from thatstuff.
There's things that but we willnever shrink back from what the
Bible clearly states.
And so, um, yeah, so with that,let's, let's dive in.
(09:44):
Uh, let me start by asking um,we'll start across the table
with Rob.
Let's talk about differentopinions and ideas that people
hold about what was happening onthe cross when Christ?
Both of you guys can just chimein what, what are the opposing
views?
What do people believe and dowe reject all of those views or
(10:07):
do we harmonize those views withpenal substitutionary atonement
?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I think that's the frustrating part is most of
what has been out there that'sbeen called like a theory of the
atonement.
To me you know there'stheological jargon that's
helpful in a certain realm toclarify, to shorthand, to move
(10:32):
on in the conversation whenyou're talking to people that
understand, that live in thatworld, but that can be
frustrating and muddy the waterfor people who don't.
So I think there are manyaspects not theories, but many
aspects of the atonement, thework of Christ on the cross,
that are clearly taught inScripture, that should be held
(10:55):
to and I mean for the believerabsolutely celebrated.
They're beautiful teachingsfrom the Scripture.
Saying theories already kind ofsets people up to think there's
different options or is justthe ideas of man that are being
overlaid on top of Scripture,when in most cases not all, but
(11:19):
most cases that's not thereality.
These are just biblicalteachings that have been
shorthanded for clarity's sake,for unification, like when false
teaching about the atonement istrying to enter the church and
believers, scholars, theologians, pastors, whatever come
(11:39):
together and no, we're sayingthat the Bible teaches this and
here's why.
And no, we're saying that theBible teaches this and here's
why.
And then they come up with astatement like penal
substitutionary atonement, toshorthand what is clearly
throughout the New Testamentespecially.
It has its deep, strong rootsin the Old Testament.
And so, yeah, there's differentaspects, but what we're saying
(12:03):
is the heart of the atonement,the centrality of the atonement,
that if we lose this one thing,all the other aspects of the
atonement like that Christ wasvictorious over sin, death and
the grave.
He defeated our greatestenemies for us, so that we get
(12:23):
to now live in his victory, thatdeath, like one day when I
physically die, that death isn'tgoing to hold on to me.
It's not going to hold on to mebecause it couldn't hold on to
Christ.
Christ defeated death and so Iget to live in his victory, so
I'm going to pass through thedeath that he's already defeated
into the eternity of life withhim in his kingdom.
(12:49):
Well, that doesn't mean anythingif penal substitutionary
atonement wasn't accomplished,meaning if Jesus in his perfect,
spotless righteousness didn'tgo to the cross and God, the
Father, see him as having myguilt, my sin, my shame, and
punish him in accordance withthe punishment that I deserve,
(13:13):
and then that he not only coversmy sin, but the Bible in the
New Testament says it still usesthe word atonement, but it
really emphasizes this wordcalled propitiation, which takes
it to expand our understandingof what Jesus was doing is that
he actually absorbs and thensatisfies God's wrath.
(13:36):
That's why there's therefore nowno condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus, becausethere's none left over.
Jesus absorbed and satisfiedGod's wrath, so that there's
none left over.
Jesus absorbed and satisfiedGod's wrath so that there's none
left over for me.
So if that doesn't happen, hisvictory over death doesn't
matter, because I'm still in mysin.
And so I think it's in a lot ofways a scarecrow-type argument
(13:58):
to try to pit Christ asvictorious, that aspect of the
atonement, over and against whatwe shorthand penal
substitutionary atonement.
Those aren't in conflict,they're in perfect harmony along
with what does it mean thathe's paid our debt?
What does it mean that he's ourexample?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
All these things are beautiful aspects of what Christ
accomplished and they worktogether perfectly specifically
(14:47):
in the Bible, but the teachingand the doctrine of that is
there and it is harmonious withthese other doctrines called.
One is called Christus Victor,one is called Ransom Theory or
Ransom Atonement.
So yeah, how you harmonizethose through scripture and then
where we see the atonementdoctrine in scripture.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Yeah, I think that's super helpful and I do.
I love the way that Rob phrasedit with.
These are different aspects,and we were having a
conversation beforehand where,yeah, I do see that Christ is
victorious and we see that overand over.
You talked about it inColossians 2, right In
Colossians 2, where it says 13to 15, it says you were dead in
(15:26):
your trespasses and theuncircumcision of your flesh,
god made alive, together withhim, having forgiven all our
trespasses by canceling therecord of debt that stood
against us with its legaldemands, this he set aside,
nailing it to the cross, and hedisarmed the rulers and
authorities and put them to open.
(15:47):
Shame by triumphing over them.
So do we see both the ransomtheory and Christus Victor here?
Yes, absolutely, that isawesome, and we should like what
you said, man.
We should celebrate this.
This is awesome.
However, if we just have andthat's where I think it's
important that these aspectsaren't mutually exclusive you
(16:08):
don't have to say and that'swhere, yeah, it is kind of a
straw man argument to say, ohyeah, set this up here.
See, that can't be right.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Us on our behalf, that we areactually a part of the gospel
because he took our sin in hisbody on the tree so that we
would die to sin and live torighteousness.
(16:30):
A couple more passages I thinkare super helpful.
That's 1 Peter, 2, 24.
He himself, and I think it'sjust important to slow down and
look at all of the words.
He bore our sins right.
Those are sins that we had tobear the penalty of, but we
don't have to because there is apenalty that's been paid and a
(16:52):
substitute for that for christ.
And so when we in this, we seethat christ takes our sin and in
return gives us hisrighteousness right so that we
might die to sin and live torighteousness, by his wounds,
you have been healed Like Ican't.
That's such clearsubstitutionary language.
(17:14):
And then and he's actually, youknow, referring back to Isaiah
53, which we read in church lastnight, but I'm gonna I'll skip
over the beginning of it Inverse 4, surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrow.
And then verse 5, he waspierced for our transgressions,
(17:36):
he was crushed for ouriniquities.
The chastisement that broughtus peace, and with his wounds,
wounds we are healed.
And I.
And then at the end, and uh, hesays in verse 12 um, therefore,
I will divide him a portionwith the many and he shall
divide the spoil, the strong,because he poured out his soul
to death and was numbered withthe transgressors.
(17:58):
Yet he bore the sin of many andmakes intercession for the
transgressors.
And then we see, all throughoutthe New Testament, those themes
are being picked up, as Christis having to pay for our sin,
pay the penalty for, I mean, we,everybody.
If you went to Sunday school,you memorized Romans 3, 23,.
For the wages of sin is death,right, but the gift of God is
(18:21):
eternal life.
That there is a payment thathas to be paid for sin, and what
I get so confused, like whatyou're talking about.
I mean it doesn't make sensewhy people are attacking this
and the only thing that doesmake sense is an emotional
overreaction like what you weresaying.
We saw this in the 90s.
This is the emergent churchrevisited and people want to say
(18:42):
see, are you telling me thatthis beautiful gospel just boils
down to divine child abuse?
And you're like no man.
You've got a terribleunderstanding of the work of all
of the persons of the Trinity.
Yes, did God exercise his wrath?
Yes, but Jesus Christ offeredhimself up freely as a payment
(19:07):
for that wrath, to receive thatwrath for the joy that was set
before him.
So in our minds it seems crazy,because it says in Isaiah 53, it
was the will of the Lord tocrush him.
That seems crazy.
But then we see, oh no.
Jesus says oh no for the joythat was set before him.
He endured the cross, despisingthe shame because they were
(19:27):
working together in this perfectunity and harmony.
And when yesterday morning,with in our family worship, we
were just, we were talkingthrough that passage and saying,
man, when we realize what anamazing, an amazing unity and
community that existed foreternity in the Trinity, that it
(19:48):
makes when it says in 1 John 4,right that in this is love, not
that we loved God, but that heloved us and sent his son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
We can't imagine the amount oflove that existed inside the
Trinity.
And how much more does thatmake God sending Jesus and Jesus
(20:10):
willingly going.
I mean that to me isoverwhelming.
And then you know that.
And it says that God sent Jesus, his son, to be the
propitiation for our sins.
And it it uses that.
It in in the original languagethe grammatical construction is
that the son equals, he is thepropitiation, and not just a
(20:31):
propitiation it says for oursins.
And so I think over and overwhen we're reading through
scripture, to slow down and justsee when it's using the work of
Christ, and then to see thatpersonal pronoun Like, oh, he
did this for our sins.
And then the other one.
I wanted to mention two more.
I wanted to mention real quick1 Peter 3.18,.
(20:54):
For Christ suffered once forsins, the righteous for the
unrighteous.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, the righteous for the unrighteous.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I mean you can't.
I mean that is that'ssubstitution.
He suffered, that's the penalty.
The righteous, he, the onlyrighteous one For the
unrighteous, that's us, that hemight bring us to God, being put
to death in the flesh but madealive in the spirit.
And then, I think, in 2Corinthians, 5, 21,.
For our sake, he made him, whoknew no sin, to be sin for us,
(21:26):
so that in him we might becomethe righteousness of God.
I mean, that's why I don't see.
I do love highlighting thoseother aspects, because that's
great.
Is Jesus an example?
Yes, but we couldn't followthat example had he not given us
his righteousness, had he nottaken our sin and given us his
righteousness.
Is he victorious?
Yes, but he's not justvictorious for himself, he's
(21:55):
victorious because he's bringingus into it, meaning a
fundamental change in us to beable to follow in that.
So, yeah, I think it's great tothink of these, not in
opposition but in harmony, andthey only draw their
significance because of what'shappened in the penal
substitutionary atonement.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You know, I think Brian McLaren was the first one
I ever heard and he was like thegodfather of that emergent
movement.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
He wrote the Generous Orthodoxy.
Was that first book?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Yeah, that was the first book, that really popped
yeah.
Which was neither of thosethings.
It was neither.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Generous nor Orthodox .
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Or is it?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
a new Orthodoxy.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Did he write a new kind of Christian?
He wrote a new kind ofChristian and he wrote Generous
Orthodoxy, generous Orthodoxy.
That was the two.
Yeah, that was the two.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, Um and he was the one who made that
comment about this view of theatonement, this aspect the the
heart of the gospel, that helikened it to divine child abuse
.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And isn't that same book where he said it'd be like
if a husband was mad at his wifeand he kicked the dog?
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Right, yeah, it was that same.
That's in generous orthodoxy, Ithink.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Right, it was that same.
That's in generous orthodoxy, Ithink.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Which is just this was at the hub of the emergent
movement JB.
So the idea was God ispunishing Jesus for my sin.
That's like a husband who's madat his wife, who then kicks the
dog to punish the dog.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Is that supposed to be like an analogy to the
Trinity?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Maybe that's horrible , we don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
That's horrible yeah it's horrible on every possible
level.
But what became clear?
Because, you know, then RobBell, you know, took the ball
and ran with it.
Um, you know he wrote aboutMcLaren's writing that you know
Christianity was black and whiteform, it was oppressive.
(23:45):
He experienced this freedomwhen he realized, oh, god's not
really like this.
The heart of the gospel, theselfless, sacrificial love of
God on display through Jesus onthe cross, is the idea.
(24:26):
What it's going to back towardsis oh, god's not really angry
at your sin.
God's really not sending peopleto hell.
Right removes.
It's designed to remove andcover that reality of God's
nature and character.
So if God's not really angry atsin, well then Jesus didn't
(24:49):
need to die for our sin.
Something else was going onthere, and so that all becomes
like this attempted Jedi mindtrick to get people away from
calling people to repentance.
You don't need to call peopleto repentance.
You don't need to tell themthat God is going to hold them
accountable for their sin, likewe just need to tell them Jesus
loves them.
We just need to tell them thatJesus has this awesome plan that
(25:11):
sin in the Bible gets redefined.
And this is what worries me,because I've seen some of the
other people that you mentionedmore recently saying similar
things that sin isn't a personaloffense against a holy God,
where we've fallen short of theglory, right His glory, that
we're not living out what itmeans to be an image bearer.
(25:32):
That sin's not an attackagainst God's nature and
character.
Sin gets redefined Once youremove God's holiness and his
wrath and his justice.
Sin gets redefined as I'm notliving the optimal human life
that God designed me for.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Living up to my potential right.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
So it just it goes from being centered on the
nature and character of God tobeing centered on me.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So why then would I think this is important for this
episode, that we explain this?
Why would those people that areproponents of those different
ideas, why would they say jesushad to die on the cross?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
yeah, that, that's a good y'all know that's a good
question With the older schoolnow for us somehow it's no
longer the early 2000s theywould then emphasize his
sacrificial love in so much thathe was willing to die for the
(26:38):
things that he he was teachingfor living.
this kind of example and hisdeath is more at the hands of
the people who put him down forteaching that rather than this
was god's, always god's plan,from before the foundation of
the earth, that the sun shouldsuffer in our place okay, that's
the argument they would make,which is crazy.
(26:58):
My assumption is that somethingsimilar is going on now.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Yeah, and to me, what's always been the
frustrating part of that is thatthat doesn't make sense, right,
like if you were going to showyour supreme power over
something, why would it benecessary to die?
That's not what amazinggenerals do, right?
(27:24):
And there has to be somethingelse in play, and I do think
that the appeal is that it doessoften the gospel, right, it
makes Christianity seem morepalatable, but what happens is
you've lost the gospel and it'sno longer Christianity.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah, you've absolutely neutered it in an
attempt to and I appreciate thatyou say seems, because the
reality is it can't.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
It doesn't yeah Right .
There is no gospel.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, right, there is no gospel, yeah, yeah and
because just one more thought isall attempts, you know, because
some people, I think from alegitimately good way and I
think it exposes weaknesses intheir understanding of scripture
in other places Like, if yourstarting point is man, I've got
(28:21):
to get people to trust in Jesus.
If that's your starting point,then you're going to end up
softening the gospel oversalvation.
No one can come to Christunless God draws him, unless God
(28:48):
opens their eyes.
That's why Jesus was healingblind people and opening the
ears of deaf people and bringingback a corpse from the dead.
All of that to illustrate onlyI can save, you know.
And so our responsibility is notto try to get them to be
attracted to Christ, ourresponsibility is just to tell
them the truth, and that's thevehicle God has chosen to use to
(29:11):
bring dead people to life.
And so we don't hesitate to saytell them about the holiness of
God and our need to repent.
Because here's the beauty, whenyou understand that, like, how
beautiful is it that the sameGod whose holiness you've
offended and whose hell youdeserve, he himself, has
(29:31):
provided the way for you to beforgiven and to have his wrath
towards you satisfied withoutyou ever paying an ounce of it.
You know, like and so, but Ithink if we start from the
perspective, I've got to getthem to see that Christ is
beautiful, um and and attractive.
We've already.
We're already on the wrong footand we'll end up compromising
(29:52):
other doctrines along the way.
But if we're firm and man God'ssovereign, he's the only one
who can save and he will save.
And just tell him the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'll close with two illustrations.
One that last thing you saidmade me think of when, when a
new parent is trying to teachtheir child to eat vegetables.
Or you know like you get thatlittle cups of baby food and
that child's only been on milkor formula and they want to try
to get them to eat thevegetables.
Or you know like you get thatlittle cups of baby food and
that child's only been on milkor formula and they want to try
(30:24):
to get them to eat the carrotsor the peas or the green beans,
and so they'll take and theycan't, the kid won't eat it.
Because they accident notaccidentally because they gave
that kid the sweet yogurt or thedessert type, the fruit.
So now the kid's like I don't,whatever you're putting in my
mouth, I don't want that.
It tastes nasty, I want thatother thing that tastes really
(30:45):
good.
So then you see, parents and Idid this with our first child
you put a little bit of thevegetable and then you put the
sweet stuff on top of it, likeyou're trying to trick that
kid's taste buds.
Well then they just spit it allout.
And then so I remember for usthe second kid came along and
we're like let's don't introducethe sweet stuff, let's just,
(31:05):
when we take them to hard foodor to soft food, let's give them
you know, like the brand cereal, the green stuff.
And then that kid didn't tastethe sweet stuff, so they
accepted it, you know.
But I think there's thisattempt to sweeten the gospel,
but it's already the sweetesttruth in history.
(31:25):
So what they're doing isthey're trying to make it
palatable to someone who doesn'thave eyes to see, ears to hear
or desire for it.
That's right.
The other illustration is justthe old we've all used this or
heard this where it's like youowe a debt you can't pay, right,
there's an old song, zach, thatyou and I would have grown up
(31:50):
with I owed a debt I couldn'tpay.
He paid a debt he didn't owe.
I needed someone to wash mysins away.
However, that went.
But there's an old quote Idon't know who said this,
someone in the last century, butit's like jesus paid a debt I
couldn't pay.
He lived a life I couldn't live.
He died a death I should havedied and he and he raised back
(32:13):
to life in my place.
Um, it's the debt that I owe.
The wages of sin is death.
I can't pay that, unless I comeunder the punishment and the
wrath of God, that's right.
What Jesus did in taking mypunishment would be like if I
owed a debt to the government,to the IRS, and I don't have
(32:36):
enough money, jesus takes notjust enough money to pay that
debt and put it in my bankaccount.
He takes his bank account andempties it into my bank account.
So I owe, I owe a seatbeltticket for $200 and I'm broke.
It's not like he's putting the$200 into my bank account.
He's putting the nationaltreasury into my bank.
(32:57):
He's all of his wealth, all ofhis treasury, into my bank.
He's all of his wealth, all ofhis all, all of his worth is
going into my account to thenpay the debt.
And that's and that's where umback where we start.
Where Rob started this with theidea of ransom being paid, is
that my debt is being paid byJesus.
He's doing that on my behalfand that that is at the heart of
(33:21):
penal substitutionary atonement.
That's why I went to the cross.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Right, we sang that song on Thursdays, adam and
little Um, and one of the lyricsthat I feel like really struck
a chord with me is I'd ratherdie than be without you.
Do you guys know?
the song that I'm talking aboutand I feel like that I've one.
It's just like kind of anemotional song, like it's very
good, very just so good, such agood moment.
(33:46):
But that that lyric of likewhoa, like Jesus died because he
wanted like to bear my, my sinand my shame and my guilt, so
that we could one day betogether, be united.
Um, yeah, I also really likewhat Zach was saying Like just
take time to like read scripture.
(34:07):
I feel like a lot of times I Imet with my community group um
this year and was like listeny'all, I don't want to like read
another book or a devotional,like all of those things are
great, but like let's just focuson like we're gonna read
scripture, we're gonna keep eachother accountable, we're gonna
talk about like what we read,and like I feel like sometimes
we can blow things out ofproportion and completely forget
(34:30):
about scripture and the gospeland like the words that it's
saying.
All these things are still veryimportant, don't get me wrong,
but I think sometimes we canjust get in over our heads and
be like here's this theory andnot really just read the
sweetness and the goodness thatwe have.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
Yeah, I mean, that's why, you know, I love
theological education, I loveclarity.
I think theological languagegives clarity.
But theological language isworthless unless it's grounded
in scripture, unless you can sayyou know, this is where this is
coming from.
It might make sense logically,it might make sense to you
(35:06):
emotionally, but if it's, ifit's not grounded in scripture,
then we don't.
We don't believe it.
And that's why it's good tohave these conversations,
because we're like, yeah, wewant to say penal,
substitutionary atonement.
We don't just say that becausewe want to put ourselves on some
team we're on the PSA team,woo-hoo but we want to say that
because we believe this is theclearest way of explaining what
the Bible is saying.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Here in Sproul, macarthur and Piper at the same
conference.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
That'd be awesome, that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, that was amazing.
All right, thank y'all.
Come to be strong.
If you're a dude, if you're agirl, you're not really supposed
to come.
Come to respond in the spring,um, but we, we hope to see you
at be strong.
This is the content we'll be.
We'll be covering much more indepth, obviously, instead of a
half hour podcast.
(35:55):
Uh, every session will bedriving at this and, uh,
hopefully a lot of conversationsurrounding it.
But let us know what you thinkand if there's anything we can
do to to bring more clarity tothis, please leave a comment or
email us.
Just make that, make that clearto us and we'll do our best to
to try to answer those questions.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Thank, you Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required
.
Please take a moment tosubscribe and leave a rating.
It really helps.
Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
resources, and we'll see younext week on no Sanity Required.
Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of
Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters.
A podcast about the Bible,culture and stories from around
the globe.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I wanted to do this bonus episode.
I wanted to do this bonusepisode Today we're recording to
discuss a breakdown from thesummer, but y'all are going to
see this week an emphasis and afocus on our social media
(00:42):
platforms where we're changingthe discussion or the theme or
the focus of Be Strong.
This fall, in 2026, fall BeStrong we were slated to talk
about a doctrine called penalsubstitutionary atonement and
we're changing that.
We're moving that up to 25.
This is a last-minute change,but we feel like it's necessary
and so, before we get into thisconversation again, it's a bonus
(01:03):
episode.
We'll keep this brief.
I want to talk about why we'remaking that change, sort of why
now, because this is somethingthat continually comes up in
Christian circles, theologicalcircles, but it's important to
us.
It's important enough thatwe're making that change.
We're going to address it atthe 25 Fall Be Strong Conference
(01:28):
rather than the 26th, and so Iwant to start off by just
talking about what the doctrineis.
I'm going to let JB talk aboutthat and then I'm going to give
a little bit of a recent modernhistory of sort of the conflict
or controversy around thisdoctrine, and then we're going
to talk a little bit about whatit, what are the what, what's
(01:51):
the dexterity and the layers toit, and and sort of uh, drive
that towards the be strongconference that's coming up next
month.
So anyway, that's a lot goingon, but, um, but, so why don't
you?
Let's start off with JB, just asimple layman's, laywoman's
work and definition of penalsubstitutionary atonement.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, Okay.
So before we hit record, wewere joking and I said that
before really working atSnowbird.
I thought penal substitutionaryatonement was something to do
with circumcision.
I hope I'm not the only one outthere that thinks that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Surely not Little, I think little still thinks that.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But Snowbird does a great job.
We've talked a lot about thison the podcast before but in
those two weeks of stafftraining all of our summer staff
goes through and we cover a lotof doctrinal things like penal,
substitutionary atonement.
They do a great job ofexplaining that so it's been
super helpful for me.
But basically I'll break itdown as penal is penalty um
(02:49):
substitution, obviouslysubstitution taking someone's
place, and then atonement um islike the covering, so basically
um the gospel essentially ofJesus dying on the cross for our
penalty, paying the price, liketaking our place.
And yeah, I might have clammedup a little bit.
(03:11):
No, it's good, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That works.
The only thing I would just addfor clarity is Christ is dying
in our place as the one who isbearing the wrath of God, is
dying in our place as the onewho is bearing the wrath of God,
which is why I think which is abig part of his prayer in the
garden when he said if it'spossible to let this cup pass
for me, it's the fact that he'salways been in perfect harmony
(03:35):
and fellowship with the father,and now he's about to receive
the wrath of the father for sinthat he's never committed, and
so the weight of that isoverwhelming to Christ in that
moment.
And one of the arguments thatis made against penal
substitutionary atonement aswhat theologians call an
(03:56):
atonement theory or atonementdoctrine, of which there are
different opinions and differenttheories or doctrines, which
we'll get into a little bit.
But one of the things that Ithink is wrongly applied to
penal substitutionary atonementby its opponents is the idea
(04:17):
that it pits Jesus, the son,against God the father.
It pits them against oneanother where we would say oh no
, no, it's perfectly harmonious.
It is the will of the Father todo this and it is the will of
the Son to do this.
Jesus said no one takes my lifefrom me.
I lay it down.
One of the arguments against itis and I went down a rabbit
(04:40):
hole Saturday listening toopponents of this and they say
you've got God.
I would listen to a pastorstanding in a pulpit.
I don't know who the guy was,but he stood in the pulpit and
he said you can't have the sonunder the wrath of the father
because now they're not inharmony, they're not in
fellowship and what we would sayis they're in perfect
fellowship.
Maybe for us, the clearestpicture that we have in the
(05:04):
Bible of the fellowship and theoneness between the father and
son is the cross of Christ,where Jesus willfully, lovingly
and knowingly embraces ourjudgment, our wrath.
God's just.
Uh, I don't.
I don't want to go, I don'twant to drop a bunch of names,
(05:29):
um, but I did.
I've got a note at thebeginning here saying why are we
addressing this now?
Um, so let me give a quickhistory of snowbird me, my
personal sort of journey withthis, and then I'm going to.
I'm going to push thediscussion across the table.
In 2008, I attended a conference.
(05:51):
It was a Together for theGospel conference, and the topic
of that conference was penalsubstitutionary atonement.
I heard in person JohnMacArthur and RC Sproul at the
same conference.
Both have gone to be at theLord and both taught a different
aspect.
I don't remember now a lotabout that conference.
(06:11):
Piper preached I heard Sproul,macarthur, piper, all at that
conference.
Cj Mahaney preached, moellerpreached, and it was different
aspects of the atonement.
Because it is one of the thingsthat is important to understand
is this is something thatvolumes have been written on and
(06:31):
people will try to condense itinto a 20-minute debate or an
hour-long debate, but I rememberleaving there realizing this
doctrine is important, but I hadalways assumed everyone
believed this.
I thought if you're a Christian, you believe that you might not
call it penal substitutionaryatonement, but you believe that
Jesus bore the wrath of God foryour sin.
(06:53):
And I realized in thatconference a lot of people don't
hold to that and so it hasresurfaced at different times
throughout history.
But going back to the 90s,there was a movement called the
Emergent church.
Have you ever heard of that, jb?
It's before your time.
So we were these guys and likewe were kind of coming of
theological age when this washappening.
(07:14):
And and in the 90s this, thismovement emerged out of orthodox
evangelical christianity thattried to contextualize this is a
super cliff note version triedto over contextualize
theological doctrine to make itfit into in a more palatable way
into society and culture inmodern times.
(07:35):
And what ended up happening isthey ended up.
This movement abandonedhistorical christian doctrine
that we've held to since thechurch fathers of the first and
second century.
Now it eventually derailed andwent under because no, nothing
that comes against this is goingto stand.
I want to be clear when youcome against the person and work
of Jesus, you will.
(07:56):
It won't stand.
The movements will rise andfall.
The movement of the gospel hasbeen ongoing since Jesus walked
the earth and really sincebefore then, into the Old
Testament, all the way back tothe garden.
So movements come and go, butthey're repackaged differently,
(08:17):
and so what's recently emergedis John Mark Comer, who some of
our listeners will be familiarwith, made a statement in a
tweet about a book.
The book is called Lamb of theFree.
Does that sound right?
Lamb of the Free?
Written by a guy who's like aliberal Bible professor, and in
(08:39):
it he basically debunked.
He said that this book dealt afinal death blow or knockout
knockout blow to penalsubstitutionary atonement.
So, um, it caught me off guardbecause I, when it was brought
to my attention, I it was, uh,gavin ortland, who I was.
I watched his stuff and he hadtalked about it, and so I just
(09:00):
want to, in in the next fewminutes, turn these guys loose
to talk about what is theimportance of this doctrine and
why is it so important that wehold to it and that we push back
against people that reject it,and why, at Snowbird, this is a
hill we will die on.
We will never shrink back fromdefending this doctrine, and we
(09:21):
don't have to because the wordof God defends it.
This is not a cultural issue,um, and we don't have to cause.
The word of God defends it.
This is not a cultural issue.
It's not like, uh, we'll, wewon't shrink back from defending
a certain type of music orworship style or Bible
translation.
We'll shrink back from thatstuff.
There's things that but we willnever shrink back from what the
Bible clearly states.
And so, um, yeah, so with that,let's, let's dive in.
(09:44):
Uh, let me start by asking um,we'll start across the table
with Rob.
Let's talk about differentopinions and ideas that people
hold about what was happening onthe cross when Christ?
Both of you guys can just chimein what, what are the opposing
views?
What do people believe and dowe reject all of those views or
(10:07):
do we harmonize those views withpenal substitutionary atonement
?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I think that's the frustrating part is most of
what has been out there that'sbeen called like a theory of the
atonement.
To me you know there'stheological jargon that's
helpful in a certain realm toclarify, to shorthand, to move
(10:32):
on in the conversation whenyou're talking to people that
understand, that live in thatworld, but that can be
frustrating and muddy the waterfor people who don't.
So I think there are manyaspects not theories, but many
aspects of the atonement, thework of Christ on the cross,
that are clearly taught inScripture, that should be held
(10:55):
to and I mean for the believerabsolutely celebrated.
They're beautiful teachingsfrom the Scripture.
Saying theories already kind ofsets people up to think there's
different options or is justthe ideas of man that are being
overlaid on top of Scripture,when in most cases not all, but
(11:19):
most cases that's not thereality.
These are just biblicalteachings that have been
shorthanded for clarity's sake,for unification, like when false
teaching about the atonement istrying to enter the church and
believers, scholars, theologians, pastors, whatever come
(11:39):
together and no, we're sayingthat the Bible teaches this and
here's why.
And no, we're saying that theBible teaches this and here's
why.
And then they come up with astatement like penal
substitutionary atonement, toshorthand what is clearly
throughout the New Testamentespecially.
It has its deep, strong rootsin the Old Testament.
And so, yeah, there's differentaspects, but what we're saying
(12:03):
is the heart of the atonement,the centrality of the atonement,
that if we lose this one thing,all the other aspects of the
atonement like that Christ wasvictorious over sin, death and
the grave.
He defeated our greatestenemies for us, so that we get
(12:23):
to now live in his victory, thatdeath, like one day when I
physically die, that death isn'tgoing to hold on to me.
It's not going to hold on to mebecause it couldn't hold on to
Christ.
Christ defeated death and so Iget to live in his victory, so
I'm going to pass through thedeath that he's already defeated
into the eternity of life withhim in his kingdom.
(12:49):
Well, that doesn't mean anythingif penal substitutionary
atonement wasn't accomplished,meaning if Jesus in his perfect,
spotless righteousness didn'tgo to the cross and God, the
Father, see him as having myguilt, my sin, my shame, and
punish him in accordance withthe punishment that I deserve,
(13:13):
and then that he not only coversmy sin, but the Bible in the
New Testament says it still usesthe word atonement, but it
really emphasizes this wordcalled propitiation, which takes
it to expand our understandingof what Jesus was doing is that
he actually absorbs and thensatisfies God's wrath.
(13:36):
That's why there's therefore nowno condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus, becausethere's none left over.
Jesus absorbed and satisfiedGod's wrath, so that there's
none left over.
Jesus absorbed and satisfiedGod's wrath so that there's none
left over for me.
So if that doesn't happen, hisvictory over death doesn't
matter, because I'm still in mysin.
And so I think it's in a lot ofways a scarecrow-type argument
(13:58):
to try to pit Christ asvictorious, that aspect of the
atonement, over and against whatwe shorthand penal
substitutionary atonement.
Those aren't in conflict,they're in perfect harmony along
with what does it mean thathe's paid our debt?
What does it mean that he's ourexample?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
All these things are beautiful aspects of what Christ
accomplished and they worktogether perfectly specifically
(14:47):
in the Bible, but the teachingand the doctrine of that is
there and it is harmonious withthese other doctrines called.
One is called Christus Victor,one is called Ransom Theory or
Ransom Atonement.
So yeah, how you harmonizethose through scripture and then
where we see the atonementdoctrine in scripture.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Yeah, I think that's super helpful and I do.
I love the way that Rob phrasedit with.
These are different aspects,and we were having a
conversation beforehand where,yeah, I do see that Christ is
victorious and we see that overand over.
You talked about it inColossians 2, right In
Colossians 2, where it says 13to 15, it says you were dead in
(15:26):
your trespasses and theuncircumcision of your flesh,
god made alive, together withhim, having forgiven all our
trespasses by canceling therecord of debt that stood
against us with its legaldemands, this he set aside,
nailing it to the cross, and hedisarmed the rulers and
authorities and put them to open.
(15:47):
Shame by triumphing over them.
So do we see both the ransomtheory and Christus Victor here?
Yes, absolutely, that isawesome, and we should like what
you said, man.
We should celebrate this.
This is awesome.
However, if we just have andthat's where I think it's
important that these aspectsaren't mutually exclusive you
(16:08):
don't have to say and that'swhere, yeah, it is kind of a
straw man argument to say, ohyeah, set this up here.
See, that can't be right.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Us on our behalf, that we areactually a part of the gospel
because he took our sin in hisbody on the tree so that we
would die to sin and live torighteousness.
(16:30):
A couple more passages I thinkare super helpful.
That's 1 Peter, 2, 24.
He himself, and I think it'sjust important to slow down and
look at all of the words.
He bore our sins right.
Those are sins that we had tobear the penalty of, but we
don't have to because there is apenalty that's been paid and a
(16:52):
substitute for that for christ.
And so when we in this, we seethat christ takes our sin and in
return gives us hisrighteousness right so that we
might die to sin and live torighteousness, by his wounds,
you have been healed Like Ican't.
That's such clearsubstitutionary language.
(17:14):
And then and he's actually, youknow, referring back to Isaiah
53, which we read in church lastnight, but I'm gonna I'll skip
over the beginning of it Inverse 4, surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrow.
And then verse 5, he waspierced for our transgressions,
(17:36):
he was crushed for ouriniquities.
The chastisement that broughtus peace, and with his wounds,
wounds we are healed.
And I.
And then at the end, and uh, hesays in verse 12 um, therefore,
I will divide him a portionwith the many and he shall
divide the spoil, the strong,because he poured out his soul
to death and was numbered withthe transgressors.
(17:58):
Yet he bore the sin of many andmakes intercession for the
transgressors.
And then we see, all throughoutthe New Testament, those themes
are being picked up, as Christis having to pay for our sin,
pay the penalty for, I mean, we,everybody.
If you went to Sunday school,you memorized Romans 3, 23,.
For the wages of sin is death,right, but the gift of God is
(18:21):
eternal life.
That there is a payment thathas to be paid for sin, and what
I get so confused, like whatyou're talking about.
I mean it doesn't make sensewhy people are attacking this
and the only thing that doesmake sense is an emotional
overreaction like what you weresaying.
We saw this in the 90s.
This is the emergent churchrevisited and people want to say
(18:42):
see, are you telling me thatthis beautiful gospel just boils
down to divine child abuse?
And you're like no man.
You've got a terribleunderstanding of the work of all
of the persons of the Trinity.
Yes, did God exercise his wrath?
Yes, but Jesus Christ offeredhimself up freely as a payment
(19:07):
for that wrath, to receive thatwrath for the joy that was set
before him.
So in our minds it seems crazy,because it says in Isaiah 53, it
was the will of the Lord tocrush him.
That seems crazy.
But then we see, oh no.
Jesus says oh no for the joythat was set before him.
He endured the cross, despisingthe shame because they were
(19:27):
working together in this perfectunity and harmony.
And when yesterday morning,with in our family worship, we
were just, we were talkingthrough that passage and saying,
man, when we realize what anamazing, an amazing unity and
community that existed foreternity in the Trinity, that it
(19:48):
makes when it says in 1 John 4,right that in this is love, not
that we loved God, but that heloved us and sent his son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
We can't imagine the amount oflove that existed inside the
Trinity.
And how much more does thatmake God sending Jesus and Jesus
(20:10):
willingly going.
I mean that to me isoverwhelming.
And then you know that.
And it says that God sent Jesus, his son, to be the
propitiation for our sins.
And it it uses that.
It in in the original languagethe grammatical construction is
that the son equals, he is thepropitiation, and not just a
(20:31):
propitiation it says for oursins.
And so I think over and overwhen we're reading through
scripture, to slow down and justsee when it's using the work of
Christ, and then to see thatpersonal pronoun Like, oh, he
did this for our sins.
And then the other one.
I wanted to mention two more.
I wanted to mention real quick1 Peter 3.18,.
(20:54):
For Christ suffered once forsins, the righteous for the
unrighteous.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, the righteous for the unrighteous.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I mean you can't.
I mean that is that'ssubstitution.
He suffered, that's the penalty.
The righteous, he, the onlyrighteous one For the
unrighteous, that's us, that hemight bring us to God, being put
to death in the flesh but madealive in the spirit.
And then, I think, in 2Corinthians, 5, 21,.
For our sake, he made him, whoknew no sin, to be sin for us,
(21:26):
so that in him we might becomethe righteousness of God.
I mean, that's why I don't see.
I do love highlighting thoseother aspects, because that's
great.
Is Jesus an example?
Yes, but we couldn't followthat example had he not given us
his righteousness, had he nottaken our sin and given us his
righteousness.
Is he victorious?
Yes, but he's not justvictorious for himself, he's
(21:55):
victorious because he's bringingus into it, meaning a
fundamental change in us to beable to follow in that.
So, yeah, I think it's great tothink of these, not in
opposition but in harmony, andthey only draw their
significance because of what'shappened in the penal
substitutionary atonement.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You know, I think Brian McLaren was the first one
I ever heard and he was like thegodfather of that emergent
movement.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
He wrote the Generous Orthodoxy.
Was that first book?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Yeah, that was the first book, that really popped
yeah.
Which was neither of thosethings.
It was neither.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Generous nor Orthodox .
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Or is it?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
a new Orthodoxy.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Did he write a new kind of Christian?
He wrote a new kind ofChristian and he wrote Generous
Orthodoxy, generous Orthodoxy.
That was the two.
Yeah, that was the two.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, Um and he was the one who made that
comment about this view of theatonement, this aspect the the
heart of the gospel, that helikened it to divine child abuse
.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And isn't that same book where he said it'd be like
if a husband was mad at his wifeand he kicked the dog?
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Right, yeah, it was that same.
That's in generous orthodoxy, Ithink.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Right, it was that same.
That's in generous orthodoxy, Ithink.
Yeah, what?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Which is just this was at the hub of the emergent
movement JB.
So the idea was God ispunishing Jesus for my sin.
That's like a husband who's madat his wife, who then kicks the
dog to punish the dog.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Is that supposed to be like an analogy to the
Trinity?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Maybe that's horrible , we don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
That's horrible yeah it's horrible on every possible
level.
But what became clear?
Because, you know, then RobBell, you know, took the ball
and ran with it.
Um, you know he wrote aboutMcLaren's writing that you know
Christianity was black and whiteform, it was oppressive.
(23:45):
He experienced this freedomwhen he realized, oh, god's not
really like this.
The heart of the gospel, theselfless, sacrificial love of
God on display through Jesus onthe cross, is the idea.
(24:26):
What it's going to back towardsis oh, god's not really angry
at your sin.
God's really not sending peopleto hell.
Right removes.
It's designed to remove andcover that reality of God's
nature and character.
So if God's not really angry atsin, well then Jesus didn't
(24:49):
need to die for our sin.
Something else was going onthere, and so that all becomes
like this attempted Jedi mindtrick to get people away from
calling people to repentance.
You don't need to call peopleto repentance.
You don't need to tell themthat God is going to hold them
accountable for their sin, likewe just need to tell them Jesus
loves them.
We just need to tell them thatJesus has this awesome plan that
(25:11):
sin in the Bible gets redefined.
And this is what worries me,because I've seen some of the
other people that you mentionedmore recently saying similar
things that sin isn't a personaloffense against a holy God,
where we've fallen short of theglory, right His glory, that
we're not living out what itmeans to be an image bearer.
(25:32):
That sin's not an attackagainst God's nature and
character.
Sin gets redefined Once youremove God's holiness and his
wrath and his justice.
Sin gets redefined as I'm notliving the optimal human life
that God designed me for.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Living up to my potential right.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
So it just it goes from being centered on the
nature and character of God tobeing centered on me.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So why then would I think this is important for this
episode, that we explain this?
Why would those people that areproponents of those different
ideas, why would they say jesushad to die on the cross?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
yeah, that, that's a good y'all know that's a good
question With the older schoolnow for us somehow it's no
longer the early 2000s theywould then emphasize his
sacrificial love in so much thathe was willing to die for the
(26:38):
things that he he was teachingfor living.
this kind of example and hisdeath is more at the hands of
the people who put him down forteaching that rather than this
was god's, always god's plan,from before the foundation of
the earth, that the sun shouldsuffer in our place okay, that's
the argument they would make,which is crazy.
(26:58):
My assumption is that somethingsimilar is going on now.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Yeah, and to me, what's always been the
frustrating part of that is thatthat doesn't make sense, right,
like if you were going to showyour supreme power over
something, why would it benecessary to die?
That's not what amazinggenerals do, right?
(27:24):
And there has to be somethingelse in play, and I do think
that the appeal is that it doessoften the gospel, right, it
makes Christianity seem morepalatable, but what happens is
you've lost the gospel and it'sno longer Christianity.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah, you've absolutely neutered it in an
attempt to and I appreciate thatyou say seems, because the
reality is it can't.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
It doesn't yeah Right .
There is no gospel.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, right, there is no gospel, yeah, yeah and
because just one more thought isall attempts, you know, because
some people, I think from alegitimately good way and I
think it exposes weaknesses intheir understanding of scripture
in other places Like, if yourstarting point is man, I've got
(28:21):
to get people to trust in Jesus.
If that's your starting point,then you're going to end up
softening the gospel oversalvation.
No one can come to Christunless God draws him, unless God
(28:48):
opens their eyes.
That's why Jesus was healingblind people and opening the
ears of deaf people and bringingback a corpse from the dead.
All of that to illustrate onlyI can save, you know.
And so our responsibility is notto try to get them to be
attracted to Christ, ourresponsibility is just to tell
them the truth, and that's thevehicle God has chosen to use to
(29:11):
bring dead people to life.
And so we don't hesitate to saytell them about the holiness of
God and our need to repent.
Because here's the beauty, whenyou understand that, like, how
beautiful is it that the sameGod whose holiness you've
offended and whose hell youdeserve, he himself, has
(29:31):
provided the way for you to beforgiven and to have his wrath
towards you satisfied withoutyou ever paying an ounce of it.
You know, like and so, but Ithink if we start from the
perspective, I've got to getthem to see that Christ is
beautiful, um and and attractive.
We've already.
We're already on the wrong footand we'll end up compromising
(29:52):
other doctrines along the way.
But if we're firm and man God'ssovereign, he's the only one
who can save and he will save.
And just tell him the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'll close with two illustrations.
One that last thing you saidmade me think of when, when a
new parent is trying to teachtheir child to eat vegetables.
Or you know like you get thatlittle cups of baby food and
that child's only been on milkor formula and they want to try
to get them to eat thevegetables.
Or you know like you get thatlittle cups of baby food and
that child's only been on milkor formula and they want to try
(30:24):
to get them to eat the carrotsor the peas or the green beans,
and so they'll take and theycan't, the kid won't eat it.
Because they accident notaccidentally because they gave
that kid the sweet yogurt or thedessert type, the fruit.
So now the kid's like I don't,whatever you're putting in my
mouth, I don't want that.
It tastes nasty, I want thatother thing that tastes really
(30:45):
good.
So then you see, parents and Idid this with our first child
you put a little bit of thevegetable and then you put the
sweet stuff on top of it, likeyou're trying to trick that
kid's taste buds.
Well then they just spit it allout.
And then so I remember for usthe second kid came along and
we're like let's don't introducethe sweet stuff, let's just,
(31:05):
when we take them to hard foodor to soft food, let's give them
you know, like the brand cereal, the green stuff.
And then that kid didn't tastethe sweet stuff, so they
accepted it, you know.
But I think there's thisattempt to sweeten the gospel,
but it's already the sweetesttruth in history.
(31:25):
So what they're doing isthey're trying to make it
palatable to someone who doesn'thave eyes to see, ears to hear
or desire for it.
That's right.
The other illustration is justthe old we've all used this or
heard this where it's like youowe a debt you can't pay, right,
there's an old song, zach, thatyou and I would have grown up
(31:50):
with I owed a debt I couldn'tpay.
He paid a debt he didn't owe.
I needed someone to wash mysins away.
However, that went.
But there's an old quote Idon't know who said this,
someone in the last century, butit's like jesus paid a debt I
couldn't pay.
He lived a life I couldn't live.
He died a death I should havedied and he and he raised back
(32:13):
to life in my place.
Um, it's the debt that I owe.
The wages of sin is death.
I can't pay that, unless I comeunder the punishment and the
wrath of God, that's right.
What Jesus did in taking mypunishment would be like if I
owed a debt to the government,to the IRS, and I don't have
(32:36):
enough money, jesus takes notjust enough money to pay that
debt and put it in my bankaccount.
He takes his bank account andempties it into my bank account.
So I owe, I owe a seatbeltticket for $200 and I'm broke.
It's not like he's putting the$200 into my bank account.
He's putting the nationaltreasury into my bank.
(32:57):
He's all of his wealth, all ofhis treasury, into my bank.
He's all of his wealth, all ofhis all, all of his worth is
going into my account to thenpay the debt.
And that's and that's where umback where we start.
Where Rob started this with theidea of ransom being paid, is
that my debt is being paid byJesus.
He's doing that on my behalfand that that is at the heart of
(33:21):
penal substitutionary atonement.
That's why I went to the cross.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Right, we sang that song on Thursdays, adam and
little Um, and one of the lyricsthat I feel like really struck
a chord with me is I'd ratherdie than be without you.
Do you guys know?
the song that I'm talking aboutand I feel like that I've one.
It's just like kind of anemotional song, like it's very
good, very just so good, such agood moment.
(33:46):
But that that lyric of likewhoa, like Jesus died because he
wanted like to bear my, my sinand my shame and my guilt, so
that we could one day betogether, be united.
Um, yeah, I also really likewhat Zach was saying Like just
take time to like read scripture.
(34:07):
I feel like a lot of times I Imet with my community group um
this year and was like listeny'all, I don't want to like read
another book or a devotional,like all of those things are
great, but like let's just focuson like we're gonna read
scripture, we're gonna keep eachother accountable, we're gonna
talk about like what we read,and like I feel like sometimes
we can blow things out ofproportion and completely forget
(34:30):
about scripture and the gospeland like the words that it's
saying.
All these things are still veryimportant, don't get me wrong,
but I think sometimes we canjust get in over our heads and
be like here's this theory andnot really just read the
sweetness and the goodness thatwe have.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
Yeah, I mean, that's why, you know, I love
theological education, I loveclarity.
I think theological languagegives clarity.
But theological language isworthless unless it's grounded
in scripture, unless you can sayyou know, this is where this is
coming from.
It might make sense logically,it might make sense to you
(35:06):
emotionally, but if it's, ifit's not grounded in scripture,
then we don't.
We don't believe it.
And that's why it's good tohave these conversations,
because we're like, yeah, wewant to say penal,
substitutionary atonement.
We don't just say that becausewe want to put ourselves on some
team we're on the PSA team,woo-hoo but we want to say that
because we believe this is theclearest way of explaining what
the Bible is saying.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Here in Sproul, macarthur and Piper at the same
conference.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
That'd be awesome, that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, that was amazing.
All right, thank y'all.
Come to be strong.
If you're a dude, if you're agirl, you're not really supposed
to come.
Come to respond in the spring,um, but we, we hope to see you
at be strong.
This is the content we'll be.
We'll be covering much more indepth, obviously, instead of a
half hour podcast.
(35:55):
Uh, every session will bedriving at this and, uh,
hopefully a lot of conversationsurrounding it.
But let us know what you thinkand if there's anything we can
do to to bring more clarity tothis, please leave a comment or
email us.
Just make that, make that clearto us and we'll do our best to
to try to answer those questions.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Thank, you Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required
.
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Visit us at SWOutfitterscom tosee all of our programming and
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