Substitution and Participation

Quoting from Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, Andrew Sach:

In the theology of the Bible generally and particularly in Paul’s writings, there is a sense in which believers are ‘caught’ up in the death of Jesus, such that his death becomes theirs. In Romans this emphasis comes to prominence in chapter 6, where we are said to have ‘died with Christ’ (Rom 6:8; cf. v. 2) and to have been ‘crucified with him’ (v. 6). A similar point is made elsewhere, for example, Colossians 2:20 and Galatians 2:20….

Some writers, however, have mistakenly supposed that this emphasis on what is often termed our ‘participation’ in Christ’s death excludes the idea of substitution. Or to use other terminology, they claim Christ’s death was a case of ‘inclusive place-taking’ (he shared in our experience), and this is incompatible with ‘exclusive place taking’ (Christ experienced something in order that we might not share it).

These writers are right to affirm the place of participation, but wrong to think that this displaces substitution. The two perspectives sit alongside each other in Scripture. Thus the emphasis in Romans 6:8 and Colossians 2:20 that we have ‘died with Christ’ comes together with the earlier affirmations in both letters that is was through ‘his blood’ (and not ours) that we have been justified and have peace with God (Rom. 3:25; 5:1, 9; Col. 1:20). Similarly, 1 Peter 4:1 does not overturn the substitutionary emphases of 1 Peter 2:24 and 3:18.

The atonement, like so many of God’s works, is multifaceted. (And even the word multi-faceted comes up short.) We of the pea brains must look from one direction at a time, and the temptation is to look from one direction only ever, so that we see the cut diamond as one sparkling pane of glass and nothing more. 

But there’s always more. Not substitution or participation, but both; not wrath or love, but both; not expiation or propitiation, but both; not Christus Victor or penal substitution, but both—and more. 

Don’t let flat doctrinal thinking keep you from embracing the diamond.

The Servant's Suffering Was Substitutionary

From Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, Andrew Sach, “seven noteworthy features of the text that clarify the substitutionary character of the Servant’s suffering” in Isaiah 53:

1. The Servant is explicitly said to suffer ‘for’ others (pp. 54-56).
2. The suffering of the Servant brings great benefits to those for whom he suffers (pp. 56-57).
3. The Servant suffered willingly and deliberately, not as a passive victim of the actions of others (p. 58).
4. It is God himself who acts to lay the people’s sin upon the Servant and to punish him (pp. 58-59).
5. The suffering Servant is himself sinless and righteous (p. 59).
6. The Servant suffered not for his own sin, but for the sins of others (p. 60).
7. The phrase ‘guilt offering’ is used of  the suffering Servant (p. 61).

Putting it all together:

Plainly, Isaiah 53 teaches that God’s Servant willingly took the place of his people, bearing the penalty for their sins in order that they might escape punishment.

Several years ago I had a bloggy discussion/argument with someone over whether there was penal substitution in Isaiah 53. I tried to prove that there was, but I could have done a much better job if I’d read this book first. It seemed to me, way back then, that my opponent argued around the text rather than from it to make his points. You know, lots of reasons why doesn’t have to mean what it seems to mean, but no explanation of what it really does mean and why. It pleased me, then, to read here that those who deny penal substitution in this text are “guilty of special pleading.” Yes. Exactly.

Our Passover Lamb

Two New Testament passages that connect Jesus’ death with the Passover sacrifice:

• 1 Peter 1:18-19. ”[W]e are told that ‘it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect’. Many of the Old Testament sacrifices specify the need for a lamb ‘without blemish or defect’, but whenever redemption is mentioned, with its connotations of deliverance from slavery, the events of the exodus cannot be far from any Jewish reader’s mind. The fact that Peter specifies Jesus’ blood as the means of rescue recalls the night of the first Passover, in which the blood of the lamb on the doorpost averted God’s judgment.”
• 1 Corinthians 5:7. “Paul says that ‘Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed’. In the context, Paul is urging his readers that as people redeemed by the sacrificial death of Jesus, there is no place for immorality among them. Paul urges them to rid themselves of ‘yeast’ of corruption, drawing on the imagery of the first Passover in which the Israelites were to ‘eat nothing containing yeast’ (Exod. 13:3; cf. 12:8, 15, 18-20; 13:6-7).”

The quotes are from Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, Andrew Sach. This section of the text concludes with the statement that “it is indisputable that the New Testament writers saw in the sacrifice of the Passover lamb a foreshadowing of Jesus’ redemptive death.”