Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and last week, we started collecting the data for substitution replacement. And again, I am using that phrase very narrowly. It has a very particular definition. I don't just mean someone doing something for someone else. I don't just mean representation. I don't just mean benefit. I mean literal replacement. One person, animal, object, payment, or group takes the place of another so that the replaced party does not undergo the same role, fate, obligation, service, death, claim, or consequence.
[00:01:02] And what we saw last time is that replacement is absolutely a biblical category. We have stones that can replace other stones. Seth can be appointed instead of Abel. The Levites can be taken into service instead of the firstborn. The ram can be offered instead of Isaac from the perspective of Abraham.
[00:01:26] So the question is not whether replacement exists, because it does. The question is what kind of replacement it is and what kind of role it is taking within the message of the text and what it basically is accomplishing. But now we need to look at a different set of texts and a different set of substitution replacements. Because I think that some of the most important passages we should look at here are not the accepted replacements, but the really complicated ones.
[00:02:01] What happens when Moses offers himself for or instead of Israel and God refuses? What happens when Judah offers himself instead of Benjamin, but the substitution never actually happens? What happens when David wishes he had died instead of Absalom, but that wish cannot save anyone?
[00:02:26] And then what happens when Proverbs reverses the direction and says that the wicked comes in place of the righteous? And in the New Testament, what happens when Caiaphas says that one man should die for the people, or when Barabbas walks free while Jesus is condemned? These are the stories that I think the question gets really, really interesting.
[00:02:53] So last week, we asked, where does replacement language show up and what range does it have? That was the start of our question. In this episode, we're going to further that question, and we're gonna ask, what happens when replacement becomes a proposed solution to guilt or loss or judgment or slavery or death or danger?
[00:03:20] If substitution replacement were simply the obvious biblical answer to everybody's guilt and the answer to judgment, then we might expect these kinds of narratives to affirm it whenever a noble person offers to take another person's place. But that is not exactly what happens.
[00:03:42] We're gonna look at some of these examples. And they are at first examples of righteous people offering to take the place of somebody out of righteous desire. But there's also a different framing as well, that is not really quite so ethical or righteous. Reversing the direction and people trying to use other people to satisfy their own ends, and so on.
[00:04:10] And the controlling question that I want in your mind as we are thinking about this is whether or not substitution replacement is the thing that God wants or whether it is the willingness to give oneself for another. Is the righteous impulse that is actually a good thing whether or not it actually happens? We'll follow this pattern in a few other ways. And eventually, Jesus laying down his life in a way that both accomplishes what only he can accomplish and also calls his people into the same self-giving pattern.
[00:04:50] Just like I said last week, I am not bringing these passages up because I think that Moses or Judah or David are supposed to be one-to-one failed types of Christ. That is too simple of a picture, and that's not really what we have in the biblical pattern. Of course Jesus is greater than Moses. Of course Jesus is greater than Judah. Of course Jesus is greater than even David. That is not the question. The question is, when the Bible gives us scenes where someone offers or desires or imagines taking another person's place, what actually happens with that offer?
[00:05:33] I think it is important to actually look at that. Because these are category-forming texts. Even if they're not direct one-to-one correspondences, these are the stories and the pictures that are building our biblical imagination as we go through the text and look at history and how God is interacting with people.
[00:05:57] So I do think that there is some messianic typology going on here. But not only that, I think that we have to allow the stories to control our categories. If we're not doing that, then we're just not doing biblical theology as a whole. We're not allowing the Bible itself to frame the categories for us. And that doesn't mean that we can't have reversal and some surprising things going on when we have the Messiah actually come on the scene. But the surprising things that are going on are not contradictory to the typology because that would defeat the whole purpose of typology. What I'm saying is that these stories may not directly explain everything that Jesus did, but they ought to control the language that we're bringing.
[00:06:49] Last week, I gave you a few different diagnostic questions, and I'll repeat those right now just so you have them in mind. For each text, we are asking questions like, who or what is being replaced? Who is offering or causing the replacement? What does the replaced party avoid? Is the replacement accepted, rejected, interrupted, impossible, reversed, or morally compromised? Is the replacement penal? Does the biblical author carry this pattern toward Jesus, or are we the ones who are making those connections?
[00:07:33] I want to point out a really key distinction here, and that is that substitutionary willingness is not the same as substitutionary mechanism. Someone can be willing to take another place, and that willingness may reveal love, repentance, mediation, grief, courage, or even transformed character in the stories. But that does not mean that the text presents the replacement as the thing that actually accomplishes redemption. This is really key because remember, we are talking about these things within the frame of atonement theology. And atonement theology is all about how redemption is accomplished. And so if we can see that substitution is not accomplishing that redemption, then we can't actually make that into the controlling frame of atonement theory.
[00:08:35] All right, so let's go into our major example first of all. And this is in Exodus 32. I'm not gonna read the whole passage, but let me go ahead and set up what's going on here. This is the situation at Sinai, and Moses is up on the mountain, and all of the people are down at the bottom of the mountain with Aaron. And they're getting a little bit nervous because Moses isn't coming down. and so they're asking Aaron to make us gods who shall go before us. And so Aaron takes all of the gold, and there is that golden calf, right?
[00:09:12] And then God is up there with Moses on the mountain, and God says, "Moses, the people have a problem down there. They have corrupted themselves." God tells Moses what has happened. And in verse 10, God says that His wrath is going to burn hot against them. God says that he's going to make a nation of Moses instead. And it's at this moment when Moses intercedes. And he reminds God that he brought the people out of Egypt. And he reminds God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
[00:09:48] Verse 14, The Lord relents from the disaster. Moses reminds God of His promises and the situations that have gone before, and God relents. And then Moses comes down from the mountain.
[00:10:03] But then Moses sees what's going on, and he is the one who gets mad. And he throws the tablets, and he breaks them at the foot of the mountain, and he burns up the calf. So Moses has already talked to God. He knows what's happened. He's asked God to relent. Moses comes down, and he's the one who's all angry. And then Aaron asks for Moses' anger to not burn hot. And of course, that's the really silly moment where Aaron says, "I just threw the gold in and out came this calf."
[00:10:37] Moses stands in the gate of the camp and asks, "Who is on the Lord's side?" And the sons of Levi gather around him, and then Moses tells the sons of Levi to go throughout the camp and kill people.
[00:10:52] And this is really a crazy story, right? And then we get to verse 30 and even though God has already relented, and Moses has gotten mad, and Moses has had the sons of Levi go out and kill a bunch of people, verse thirty, it says, quote, "The next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Behold, my Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. Then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made." End quote.
[00:12:01] That is a really complicated story, and we kind of wonder about the repetition, and if God relented, then why did Moses go down and do everything that he did? And then he still felt like he had to go up and make atonement, and that's a really interesting use of that word here. And Moses offers himself instead. But I want you to notice the actual phrasing here. There's a broken sentence. " But now, if you will forgive their sin," and it's kind of like he doesn't really finish that thought." But if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written." So Moses is saying, "God, if it is your will, please just forgive them. But if you don't wanna do that, then you can blot me out instead.
[00:12:50] Some really important data points, and I know we could talk about what the idol is and all of that, but we'll have to do that another time. But Israel has been redeemed from Egypt. Yahweh has claimed them as his treasured possession. The covenant has just been established. Moses intercedes before he comes down the mountain and sees what's going on. There's a bunch of judgment that happens there, and then Moses goes back to Yahweh to seek atonement and or forgiveness, and clearly what we do have going on is Moses as a mediator.
[00:13:27] Now the question might be also, what is Moses actually offering? Is he offering his life? Because we tend, again, to take this blotting out language as if it is about life and death, but it might not be. But I really think this is a very clear substitution replacement kind of an offering here. Although I do want you to notice that the text is not using sacrificial language, even though he has the use of the word atonement. The word atonement does not just show up in sacrificial situations like with an animal. We have God offering to start over with Moses, basically. And Moses is saying, "No, either forgive the people or give me the consequence."
[00:14:17] But when Moses actually offers this, God's response is that the sinners are still accountable. Yahweh is refusing to transfer Israel's guilt to Moses. It doesn't mean there's no mercy or forgiveness. I want that to be out there first of all. Because notice that Aaron, who actually made the calf is not killed or seemingly blotted out. This also doesn't mean that the intercession of Moses is meaningless. It certainly doesn't mean that corporate judgment disappears. But it does mean that Moses is not accepted as Israel's replacement.
[00:14:58] Now the question here now, what does this prove and what does this not prove? Because we do need to be pretty careful here. It's not showing that substitution could never happen. It is not saying that Jesus couldn't do what Moses could not do. It's not against all vicarious suffering. And we also should not say just from this incident that divine forgiveness excludes all mediation or sacrificial kind of ideas, however we're defining that word sacrifice, okay.
[00:15:33] But it does prove, or at least it strongly suggests that there is a thread of mediation and self-offering and that is not automatically accepted. And it shows us, I think, that guilt is not easily transferred from one to another.
[00:15:54] This isn't settling the question entirely. Someone could come and argue that Jesus is the greater mediator who does what Moses could not do, but that would need to be argued from the texts that actually say that. I've heard preachers say that Moses' offer is rejected, but Jesus' offer is accepted because He is the greater Moses. But again, I would ask, does the New Testament ever explicitly use Exodus 32 in this way?
[00:16:26] I think that what's really helpful here is to see that intercession, mediation, solidarity, covenantal leadership, a willingness to suffer with or for the people is not the same as actual substitution replacement that God will accept. We still haven't found a place where God says, "Yes, I will accept someone else in place of the sinner." There are a whole bunch of passages where we see that God does not want to accept somebody else in place of the sinner. And I really have a very long list of those passages.
[00:17:07] One of them is in Ezekiel eighteen. Starting in verse twenty-three, it says, quote, "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? Declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered. For the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.
[00:17:44] " Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' Hear now, O house of Israel, is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it. For the injustice that he has done, he shall die. Again, When a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.
[00:18:20] " Yet the house of Israel says, The way of the Lord is not just. O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all transgressions that you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God. So turn and live." End quote.
[00:19:01] There are a ton of other passages that I can point to that say the exact same thing. So if we are making such a bold claim as to say that God will actually accept the innocent instead of the guilty as a payment or to pay the penalty of the debt, or literally however you want to frame that. It does not matter to me how you wanna frame it. It doesn't matter to me if you want to include the idea of wrath. But this idea of somebody taking the place of another and God accepting that, there's a whole bunch of places where it says directly that God won't. So again, if our theology is saying something other than what Scripture directly tells us, well, that is going to be an uphill battle for us
[00:19:53] But there are themes again where we see somebody offering themselves. And that is a different thing than God demanding that, okay?
[00:20:03] All right, so Exodus 32 gives us a really crucial data point. Israel sins a great sin. Moses intercedes. Moses offers himself to be blotted out if Yahweh will not forgive them, but Yahweh refuses the replacement. That doesn't make the mediation meaningless, but it does mean that Moses is not accepted as a replacement.
[00:20:29] Now we're gonna go back into Genesis and we're gonna look at a story about a brother offering to become a slave so that another brother can go free. And unlike Moses, Judah's offer is not directly rejected, but it is interrupted, and it is not fulfilled. And that interruption reveals one of the most beautiful character transformations in Genesis, I think.
[00:20:55] All right, so let's turn to the story of Genesis 44. This is another example of explicit substitution replacement language within the Joseph story. Genesis 44, verse 33:" Please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers."
[00:21:17] But this doesn't actually happen. And in fact, what it seems to do is that it triggers Joseph revealing himself, which that's fascinating. And I believe that this offer directly reveals a transformation within Judah himself as well. Judah does not save Benjamin by actually replacing him. Judah reveals that he has become the kind of brother who would, though.
[00:21:45] But let's go ahead and back up in the story. In Genesis thirty-seven, Joseph's brothers conspire against him. They first consider killing him, but Reuben intervenes, and Judah suggests that they sell Joseph rather than kill him. Judah says in Genesis 37 verse 26, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?" And so he suggests that they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites.
[00:22:14] Now, there is a little bit of a caution here. Judah also doesn't want to get his hands bloodied in the actual murder. And so he's like, "Well if we sell him, then we're not killing him, but we are getting rid of him." So Judah is deeply involved in the betrayal. He is the brother who basically set up the whole idea of the slavery. And so then we turn back into Genesis 44. And that kind of makes this even more powerful because Judah is now the one who's willing to become a slave for the sake of Benjamin.
[00:22:48] Judah is really the reason that Joseph has had all of the things happen to him, but also the reason that Jacob has lived all of these years in grief. So when Judah later offers to become a slave instead of Benjamin, I think we're called to hear that reversal of the story.
[00:23:08] Judah has already made himself responsible for Benjamin in the story prior to Genesis 44, because Jacob is reluctant to send Benjamin to Egypt. Judah says he will be the pledge for Benjamin's safety. And he says that Jacob can hold him responsible forever if he doesn't bring Benjamin back. And that's another important point that is setting up Judah's offer to Joseph. Judah could have been just as jealous of Benjamin as he was of Joseph, but instead he offers to become the protector.
[00:23:44] What is under threat here? It is the favored son. This is not dissimilar to Genesis 22, in fact. The whole reason that Benjamin is the one who is going to be in slavery, or at least in danger of the slavery, is because Joseph put his cup in Benjamin's sack, and he declares that the one with whom the cup was found will become his servant while everybody else can go.
[00:24:09] So basically Joseph has set up a test that recreates the entire situation from his own earlier life. Once again, there is a beloved son of Rachel. Once again, that son is in danger of being lost to Jacob. Once again, the brothers could walk away and save themselves. The question is, are they the same men that they were when they sold Joseph?
[00:24:36] Then Judah gives one of the most moving speeches in the book of Genesis. He recounts Jacob's love for Benjamin, the loss of Joseph, Jacob's grief, the danger that Jacob will die if Benjamin does not return, and he tells of the pledge that he made to his father. So there's kind of a double idea here. Judah is trying to save Benjamin, but he's also sparing Jacob.
[00:25:01] But crucially, again, the substitution is not actually enacted. And as the trigger that gets Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers, this is the moment of joyous revelation. And the brothers are shocked that this is Joseph and that he is fully forgiving them.
[00:25:22] There probably are some rich theological reflections to do along with the story and Judah in the royal line and the brother who gives himself for the family. We have the instead of language directly. So what is the offerer doing in the story? Is it revealing Judah's transformation? The man who once helped sell a brother into slavery is now willing to become a slave for the sake of a brother.
[00:25:51] The story of Judah is a beautiful story of self-offering. But we have other stories in Scripture where the offer or the desire of replacement is very tragic. With David and Absalom, replacement is not offered before the crisis but it is wished for after the death has already happened, and of course that wish cannot save.
[00:26:16] We're gonna look at 2 Samuel 18. This is the story of when David hears of Absalom's death, and this is kind of the end of a really long, messy, violent story within David's house. So some of the relevant background here. David sins with Bathsheba and Uriah. Nathan announces that the sword will not depart from David's house. Then we also have Amnon who violates Tamar. And then we have Absalom who kills Amnon in revenge. Absalom is estranged, then he's brought back.
[00:26:53] Absalom rebels against David, and David flees Jerusalem. Absalom seeks David's throne, and then we have civil war. David instructs his commanders to deal gently with Absalom, but he dies anyway. So David's grief is wrapped inside all of these layers of family failure, royal failure, violence, rebellion, consequence, judgment, fatherly love, political disaster.
[00:27:26] David's cry over Absalom is really heartfelt and genuine. His death is a part of a long unraveling in the whole house of David, starting with David's own sin and prophecy and further escalation, and it goes beyond the family into the whole nation. So this grief is about the consequences of the broken household, the son, but also the kingdom. David gives commands to his people to actually deal gently with his son, even though he's leading rebellion and they're all going into battle. David is caught between two things here. As the king, he is responsible for the kingdom. He can't simply allow the rebellion to stand, but as a father, he still loves his son. There's some really interesting imagery here with Absalom as well. He is caught by his hair in the branches of a tree while he's riding a mule, and he's left hanging between heaven and earth. Joab comes along and kills him despite David's command. So the rebellion ends, but it's not ending cleanly. The kingdom may be saved from rebellion, but David's son is still dead. So part of David's grief is this instead of language.
[00:28:47] Again, we should ask what kind of replacement is it? It's not actually enacted. It's not offered in advance. It's not accepted by God. There's no exchange here. But I think it's still really important to look at this piece within the context of what we're talking about here. Obviously, David's wish can't undo the rebellion or the sin or his own failures. It can't reverse the death, it can't restore the brokenness that has happened.
[00:29:16] So why do I even bring it up if it's not really comparable to a lot of these other ideas? Well, I think that it does help to show that substitutionary longing is part of the story of the people of Israel . But it's not the same thing as redemptive substitution. And I think there's gonna be an additional point here that we could make, especially regarding these major features in the buildup to Jesus, right?
[00:29:46] Moses offers himself before the judgment, but Yahweh refuses the transfer. Judah offers himself to Joseph, but Joseph interrupts it and does not accept it because he just makes things right with his brothers. And then we come to David, and David wishes after the consequence has already happened. I think that David's grief can point forward to an idea of what's going on here with what Jesus did as well.
[00:30:15] I have seen some Christians actually compare David's grief over Absalom with God the Father and the death of His Son. But there are some kind of fundamental problems with it, especially the fact that we don't have New Testament authors doing this. I'm not trying to turn Absalom into a type of Christ. That would be very strange and probably very bad typology.
[00:30:40] But this still contributes to a theological category, because we can have the righteous one. Even with David's sin and everything going on, he is still seen as the righteous one of Israel in a lot of ways, right? And so we see David, who is actually longing to bear another person's death. Even within tragedy, even within sin. So this isn't a clean typology of Jesus, and I'm not trying to make it one. But I do think it says something about the character of David.
[00:31:17] Okay, so before I kind of wrap that up a little bit more, we have now seen replacement offered and refused, offered and interrupted, and desired and impossible. But there are some other complications we need to include before we get to some New Testament examples. Sometimes the direction of replacement runs the opposite way from what many people are going to expect.
[00:31:42] Let's look at everybody's favorite book, the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs 11 verse 8 says, quote, " The righteous is delivered from trouble, and the wicked walks into it instead." End quote.
[00:31:59] So, you know, we don't really make a whole lot of theology out of Proverbs, right? Because they're kind of short little ideas, and sometimes they seem really contradictory. But this is quite interesting here. Proverbs as wisdom literature is giving us an observation about the moral order of how the world works. And so it's really interesting that we can have replacement language functioning in a wisdom frame where the issue isn't about ritual or sacrifice or mediation or atonement, but it is a moral reversal and providential justice as well.
[00:32:38] That matters for our data set because if we're trying to understand what the Bible does with instead of language, we can't just collect examples that already sound like the conclusion that we want. We have to find the strange ones. So here in Proverbs 11, the righteous is in some sort of danger or trouble, and he is delivered, and the wicked comes into that place instead.
[00:33:05] What kind of replacement is this? It's a reversal replacement, or perhaps providential justice replacement, where the righteous is spared and the wicked falls into the trouble instead. It's not that he's punished instead of the righteous one. It's a little bit closer to the guilty or the wicked one ends up in the trouble from which the righteous is rescued.
[00:33:30] Now, that kind of extrapolates a little bit beyond what the verse actually says, but it does seem to be almost the opposite of the way Christians are gonna talk about substitution. We don't have a righteous person suffering instead of the wicked, but we have a picture of the righteous being delivered and the wicked falling into the trouble from which the righteous is rescued. Basically this really is just saying what all of the other passages I was bringing up before talk about, where justice is about people getting their just reward.
[00:34:05] Here's an even more interesting verse in Proverbs. Proverbs 21:18, which says, quote, " The wicked is a ransom for the righteous, and the traitor for the upright." End quote.
[00:34:20] Ah, now we have ransom language. The righteous and upright are contrasted with the wicked and the traitor. The wicked becomes a ransom for the righteous. The traitor becomes a ransom for the upright. The moral direction is wicked for righteous. So we're really not getting into ransom ideas here just yet today. But clearly, ransom cannot just automatically mean innocent substitute punished instead of the guilty, because that really wouldn't make any sense here. And I'm gonna suggest this verse actually goes really well with a lot of ransom language in regards to the Exodus.
[00:35:00] So far, the examples we've looked at have involved noble people offering themselves or desiring to be the one to replace someone else in an unpleasant situation. But we also have this other angle where it is not righteous offering themselves for the wicked, but a reversal of that. The righteous is being delivered while the wicked comes in their place.
[00:35:26] Now, what this does not do is just entirely disprove PSA, okay? Or again, penal substitutionary atonement, if you're not familiar with that. These are data points we're gonna have to use in order to understand the concept of substitution replacement. Later on, we're gonna have to talk about Jesus and ask questions like whether what he does confirms, overturns, or transforms these patterns that we see in the Old Testament.
[00:35:59] All of this sets things up really well for some important New Testament examples. We're gonna go into John chapter 11. But let me set this up. John 11 isn't just beginning with this speech by Caiaphas that I'm gonna reference. Prior to that, we actually have the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. And that sign is going to create a crisis. It's gonna create a big uproar. Many people are gonna believe in Jesus, but some are gonna go over to the Pharisees, and the chief priests and the Pharisees are gonna gather around in council.
[00:36:34] Their concern is not just the question of whether or not Jesus is the Messiah or what has God done through this sign. Their concern is if we let him go on like this, everyone's gonna believe in him, and the Romans are gonna come and take away both our place and our nation. So this life-giving sign that Jesus provides for the people in raising Lazarus is going to be what produces the death plot for him.
[00:37:02] And that is just top irony right there, right? Jesus raises Lazarus. Many people believe in him and see what he's doing and see the sign and what it is pointing to. That causes the leaders to fear his influence. And they are afraid of Roman intervention. And so they get together and they do what councils do, and they talk and they deliberate. And Caiaphas comes up and says something. And after that, from that day, is when they are making plans to put Jesus to death.
[00:37:37] John 11 verse 49 says, quote, " But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish." End quote.
[00:37:59] Verse 51 says that this is a prophecy that Jesus would die for the nation. But that prophecy doesn't erase what Caiaphas just said. He's basically saying, you guys are missing the obvious. Giving Jesus up to the authorities is going to be the way that we preserve ourselves and our station and the nation.
[00:38:24] This is not a self-giving offering. So what kind of replacement is it? Well, at Caiaphas's level, this is political substitution or expedient replacement. Jesus dies the nation or the people who are in charge do not perish under Roman threat. One man is disposed of for the sake of the collective. That is how they're seeing it. That is their goal. The motive is political survival, and of course, I'm sure for the leaders to retain their position. Caiaphas is framing Jesus's death as beneficial. But the whole thing, the whole story, it is all morally compromised.
[00:39:10] So sure, we have the one for many logic here, and we can't get around that, and I see why people are using it as a prop up for PSA. One man should die for the people so that the whole nation does not perish. In that sense, it's absolutely substitution replacement. But look, the moral setting matters.
[00:39:35] Caiaphas is not speaking as a faithful interpreter of Isaiah fifty-three or Leviticus sixteen. He is speaking as a high priest trying to preserve the nation and his own position within that nation through the death of Jesus. This is not a moral or just grounding.
[00:39:57] As I said, John immediately reframes Caiaphas' statement as a prophecy. John 11 verse 51 says, quote, " He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death." End quote.
[00:40:28] Okay, so we're not gonna remove this prophetic statement here. But John is not saying that Caiaphas was right in the way that Caiaphas meant it. John says that Caiaphas spoke more than he understood, and his corrupt political calculation becomes unwitting prophecy. But yeah, we have some questions here. I can't get away from this conclusion. If this statement by Caiaphas is proof of PSA, then Caiaphas is right in saying that it is just that Jesus does this. And that's just not the, it's not the story here.
[00:41:09] Caiaphas is framing it that way in a self-serving way, in a way that says, "Well, we'll give the innocent one up in order to save our own skins." That's not actually PSA at all. That's not God's justice.
[00:41:26] This language of for the nation I mean, sure, Jesus does die for the nation, but not only for the nation, but he dies for all of the children of God. So the purpose of Jesus's death in John 11 is not merely that the nation avoids destruction. That is literally the substitutionary logic that Caiaphas offers. Just because Caiaphas is offering a substitutionary logic doesn't mean that theologically it actually coheres in any way I mean, Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed anyway in the year 70, which complicates this whole picture of Jesus dies so the nation does not perish politically. It just doesn't work out.
[00:42:14] John's theological kind of ploy here is that with Jesus's death, there is an ingathering of the people. So there's a contrast here. Caiaphas says that one dies so the nation avoids disaster, but the nation did not avoid disaster. And John is saying that Jesus dies to gather God's scattered children into one.
[00:42:41] That is not substitutionary. Caiaphas' statement is substitutionary. But John's framing of it is not ... John is not saying that Jesus dies as a substitute. Those are Caiaphas' words. That is Caiaphas' motivation. The motivation of the Jewish high priest who wants to kill Jesus is not the motivation of God the Father. Okay? I don't really know how else to say that.
[00:43:16] John is not saying, "Well, I guess Caiaphas was right. Jesus died so that the nation would not perish." No, John is shifting the meaning. Yes, Jesus dies for the nation, but the for is not substitutionary in the way that John is saying it. It is substitutionary in the way that Caiaphas puts it, but not the way that John is.
[00:43:44] Okay, so there's two different framings of Jesus's death here. Caiaphas is doing it so that he can save his own skin. That's not what John is saying. John is not saying that Jesus is dying in order to save us from the Romans, okay? Or to save us from God. Heaven forbid.
[00:44:06] Let's go ahead and ask our actual diagnostic questions directly. Who is being replaced? At the level of Caiaphas, it is the people or the nation who would perish, and Jesus is going to die instead. But in John's theological reframing, Jesus dies for the nation and the scattered children. The goal is not to avoid perishing, but to gather them in. It's an entirely different purpose that is not substitutionary.
[00:44:42] Okay, second question. Who is causing the replacement? At the human level, the leaders are plotting. Caiaphas advises this, but Rome is gonna be the executors, and the crowd and the authorities also participate in it. So then at the divine level, we see the pattern, and we've seen the pattern through several episodes now. God's purpose is gonna work through human evil. Caiaphas unwittingly gives a prophecy, and Jesus's death becomes the means of the gathering. And so those are, again, just different ideas. God's purpose is not substitutionary here.
[00:45:28] Now, what does the replaced party avoid? And look, this is complicated. So Caiaphas imagines they avoid Roman destruction, but John does not frame the result in those terms. John frames it as gathering the scattered children of God. So we can't really say that Jesus dies instead of the nation so the nation doesn't suffer. That doesn't seem to be John's point, and it doesn't play out in the history either.
[00:45:58] So again, we have a very clear substitution-type language here, but the theological payoff is not avoidance of something, but it is something entirely different. This is why Caiaphas inadvertently prophesies something, but it's not what he thinks it is. We have nothing in here where guilt is transferred to Jesus. We don't have punishment that's owed to the people that is legally imputed to Jesus instead. We don't have God punishing Jesus instead of the nation. We don't have Jesus absorbing divine wrath in place of the people. The people do not undergo suffering because Jesus does it.
[00:46:43] Jesus does die for the nation and to gather the children of God. So clear, vicarious kind of ideas here, and beneficial. We might say that Jesus is the benefactor or the champion. But again, doing something for someone is not necessarily doing something instead of someone.
[00:47:08] Now, this is absolutely fascinating how it connects back to Proverbs, where the expected direction is that the wicked comes in place of the righteous, and the wicked are a ransom for the righteous. And that's kind of what Caiaphas is trying to do the opposite of. It is morally compromised. He's not offering Jesus as a just substitute. He's offering Jesus in an unjust way.
[00:47:36] Now we can't end the episode without talking about Barabbas. Barabbas will give the narrative exchange of the guilty released and the innocent condemned. . In John 11, Caiaphas says, "One man should die for the people." And then we get to the passion narratives, and Barabbas becomes the concrete scene of this. One guilty man is released, and Jesus is condemned. Again, though, this is a morally complicated kind of situation here.
[00:48:07] We have some really interesting bits and pieces in the different gospel accounts here. In Matthew 27, Barabbas is a notorious prisoner. Pilate offers the crowd a choice between Barabbas and Jesus. Pilate knows Jesus was handed over out of envy. Pilate's wife warns him because of a dream. The chief priests and the elders persuade the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. Pilate washes his hands of the situation. Barabbas is released. Jesus is scourged and delivered to be crucified.
[00:48:43] In Mark 15, Barabbas is imprisoned with rebels who had committed murder in the insurrection. Pilate again offers to release Jesus. The chief priests stir up the crowd. Barabbas is released, and again, Jesus is delivered to be crucified.
[00:49:01] In Luke 23, Barabbas had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder. Pilate repeatedly says he finds no guilt deserving death in Jesus, but the people demand Barabbas, so he is released, and Jesus is delivered over to their will.
[00:49:18] In John 18, Barabbas is called a robber or a bandit, or perhaps an insurrectionary figure, depending on how we understand the term. The crowd asks for Barabbas instead of Jesus, and the kingship question is central in John's trial scenes.
[00:49:36] Overall what we can say is that Barabbas is guilty or at least clearly associated with criminal and rebel violence. Jesus is repeatedly marked as innocent or unjustly condemned. The leaders manipulate the situation. Pilate capitulates to all of it. The crowd chooses Barabbas. Barabbas is released, and Jesus is handed over. So the basic exchange is very clear. Barabbas is guilty or violent. Jesus is innocent. Pilate knows the case is corrupt. The leaders are stirring up the crowd. Barabbas is released, and Jesus handed over.
[00:50:19] So what kind of replacement is this? This is direct substitution replacement. Barabbas avoids the fate that would otherwise be his, and Jesus goes to death instead. And that's not that Jesus dies for Barabbas. But it is substitution replacement because Barabbas is released and Jesus, the innocent king, is handed over. Barabbas is avoiding more imprisonment and probably death or punishment. And clearly this is not accepted or commanded by God. It is by the crowd's choice. It is through the leader's manipulation or perhaps Pilate's capitulation.
[00:51:01] And so we have a judicial and political framework here. But it's not that nobody's really saying that Jesus is receiving what Barabbas is guilty of, it is this substitutionary logic pretty clearly anyway.
[00:51:16] Now, I understand that a lot of Christians will kind of maybe want to see themselves in Barabbas. The guilty one walks free while Jesus goes to the cross. And that is obviously a very powerful image, and I don't want to dismiss that. But, you know, our kind of devotional identification is not really exegesis. And we shouldn't be presuming something that the text is not trying to say.
[00:51:45] We don't have any reconciliation of Barabbas with God. We don't see any belief of Barabbas in Jesus. We don't really have a picture here where we really can just say that, "Okay, yes, we are like Barabbas and Jesus dies instead," especially because it's the crowd and the leaders and the Roman authority who is doing his just job here.
[00:52:11] And so the, really the injustice of the whole picture is very important here. If the Barabbas exchange is substitutionary, and it is, it is substitution not through justice, but injustice. And that really ought to shape how we interpret it. And the leaders are envying Jesus. They bring false accusations. Pilate knows he's innocent. The crowd gets stirred up. And so they condemn the innocent instead of the guilty. And the Roman machinery of execution does its work. The exchange happens because everyone who should be doing justice fails. The leaders are manipulative. The crowd demands the wrong person.
[00:52:59] Pilate knows better, but he still does it. And so look, if we call this substitution, we have to say it's substitution inside a miscarriage of justice. God's saving purpose absolutely is working through that injustice, but that does not make the injustice justice. It does not make this injustice righteous.
[00:53:25] Now, some have said that Barabbas and Jesus evoke a kind of Day of Atonement contrast with two figures presented, one released and one handed over. And you know, that's a very interesting idea. And if we grant a Day of Atonement echo, we still have two goats that function very differently. One of them purifies the sanctuary. The other one is the one that bears the sins away. And so it's kind of hard to really give this contrast in a way that really makes sense, because .. which goat is Barabbas and which goat is Jesus? It's not real clear. And again, if we want to make that kind of typology, it's possible, and maybe thematically we can do some things with it.
[00:54:14] But again, if we're creating doctrine out of typology, we need to have the New Testament authors themselves bring the data to us. That doesn't mean we can't see typology. That doesn't mean we can't see kind of the narrative patterns in some ways that maybe the New Testament authors didn't explicitly bring out. But for doctrinal purposes, we must have the typology in the New Testament directly. We can't just presume it's there because we want to see it.
[00:54:49] I think that the story with Caiaphas and Barabbas together give a really powerful sequence here. Caiaphas says one man should die for the people. The story of Barabbas is one guilty man is released while Jesus dies. The theme from Joseph forward, God's purpose is working through human evil, but the evil remains evil, okay? It's not making it not evil.
[00:55:15] So are we looking at the logic of political necessity? Are we looking at judicial injustice? Both of those are making us come directly to the situation at the cross. But I think they both display the fact that the innocent one is entering this whole picture of human sin, violence, fear, false judgment, and miscarriage of justice.
[00:55:41] Now we have seen replacement offered and refused, offered and interrupted, desired and impossible, reversed in Proverbs. We have corrupt political calculation and exchange through injustice. It shows that replacement is not only varied in kind, but also in moral meaning. And so that's gonna lead to our next question. What about ransom, redemption, payment, and exchange? So that's going to be very exciting.
[00:56:15] But before we get to that, I really want to draw out a few of these ideas here that I think the stories we've looked at today kind of point towards. And there is a contrast here. There is a contrast between somebody righteous and good offering up themselves versus miscarriage of justice and political corruption. Though those are two very different things, and we have them both in these substitutionary stories. And honestly, I think we're meant to see them both.
[00:56:50] People are gonna bring up the idea that, Jesus is better than what we see in the Old Testament. And I agree fully. Jesus is better. Jesus is greater than Moses, greater than Judah, greater than David. But that doesn't mean we get to skip the exegetical question, okay? He's greater in what way?
[00:57:13] Does He do the same thing they attempted, but He's doing it successfully? Does He transform the pattern? Does He fulfill the deeper longing without using the same mechanism? Does He carry the people through rather than simply replacing them? And these are all questions we need to
[00:57:33] My suggestion is that the pattern that we see here may be self-offering, but not always successful replacement. We need to see a goodness of the offer. Moses' offer is refused, but his solidarity is righteous. Judah's offer is interrupted, but his transformation is very real. David's wish can't save, but his grief reveals the deep love he has. So the issue may not be that God wants replacement victims. The issue might be that righteous love is willing to bear cost for others.
[00:58:14] Jesus fulfills this pattern uniquely and perfectly, but he also calls his people into it. And so maybe the thing we're supposed to notice in these passages is not that God is always looking for a replacement. Maybe what we're supposed to notice is the righteous posture of self-offering.
[00:58:35] I think the stories we've talked about today, they're not working, but they reveal something about the people. They reveal something about covenantal love, familial love, mediation, brotherhood, grief. And so when we come to Jesus, we should ask whether he fulfills that pattern by becoming the one true replacement victim, or whether he fulfills it more deeply by giving himself for others and calling us into that same cruciform way of life.
[00:59:11] I'm offering you a conceptual distinction here. Substitution replacement is asking, does one person actually take another person's place so the other does not undergo the fate or consequence? On the other hand, self-offering asks, is this person willing to give themselves for another's life to restore things, to forgive, or to return?
[00:59:40] These two ideas of substitution replacement and self-offering can overlap, but they're not the same thing. They're not the same thing especially because PSA generally presupposes the first one, that justice requires the satisfaction of the consequence. If no satisfaction of consequence is required, then we can move to the idea of self-offering. But the self-offering is out of desire for another, or desire for right ordered life, or promise fulfillment.
[01:00:16] It's not about penal justice. As Andrew Rillera says in his book Lamp of the Free, Jesus goes ahead of us to show us the way and to make the way possible, but he does not go instead of us.
[01:00:33] And for those who want to say that PSA doesn't need the instead of us idea, I'm sorry, but it just does. It requires it. You can soften the idea if you want to not be inherently about justice scales or wrath. I don't really care if you do that. That's fine. It's up to how you want to personally frame it, I guess, though it's not usually how theologians are framing it. But still, in the end, if you take the instead of us idea out, we no longer have or need PSA.
[01:01:08] In Moses, in Judah, in David, the self-offering and the desire matters even when it doesn't happen. The Bible is honoring a self-giving posture without endorsing replacement as some sort of formal mechanism for justice. This is a pattern for righteous living.
[01:01:28] The idea of costly, representative, intercessory, self-giving love is a pattern that I don't think any Christian is going to say is not there in Jesus. Now, you know, people will still say, "But we still need the instead." No, we don't. We don't need it because the pattern is not allowing us to avoid suffering. Jesus isn't doing things so that we never have to. Jesus is the one who reveals and fulfills the pattern and then calls us into it.
[01:02:02] And I'll just leave you a couple of questions here as well. If Jesus does something instead of us, what is he doing? Because we still physically die. Some people will try and shoehorn an idea of spiritual death into the Bible, but it's not there. Jesus certainly does not experience the spiritual death in a sense of estrangement from the Father, because that would literally be heretical. That would break the Trinity. And so that's why we have a lot of these other forms of PSA, because people realize that, a really strict formal idea of PSA will be heretical, and obviously we don't wanna do that. So they try and back off these ideas. But Jesus doesn't experience literal hell, you know, in a fiery judgment sense.
[01:02:54] And so what does he experience that we don't? That's a question for you guys.
[01:03:02] I understand that talking about this in the way that I am can lead to kind of a high moralism that I really am not trying to get to. I am not saying that Jesus is merely giving us an example. I am saying that the biblical pattern of self-offering doesn't stop with Jesus. His death is unique, decisive, and unrepeatable. And it does things for us that we can't do ourselves. We now have resurrection. We now have eternal life through Jesus. We now have a host of other things that we can talk about in Jesus. But what it also does is create a people who learn to live in this suffering pattern, and this is a good thing.
[01:03:49] This is the way we're supposed to live. Jesus' self-giving is not merely one instance among many, but it is also not a self-giving that excludes us.
[01:04:00] So we take these ideas back into the stories we've talked about with Moses. Moses embodies that mediatorial self-giving. He is willing to be identified with the people rather than abandon them. And God refuses that, but Moses' posture still matters. Judah's offer shows transformed brotherhood. The man who once gave up a brother is now willing to give himself for another brother.
[01:04:28] So yeah, I mean, Jesus is the better mediator than Moses but I wouldn't say that he's transforming the category into a successful version of Moses' rejected substitution. He may reveal that salvation doesn't come through disposable replacement, but through faithful suffering, union, resurrection, and new creation, which those are all better than what Moses could offer. With all of these stories, Jesus exposes the injustice of replacement logic and overcomes it.
[01:05:03] These passages and stories do not condemn the desire for someone to take another's place. It's not like that's a terrible thing. But I think they are showing something about what righteousness is. Caiaphas' offering is the opposite of self-giving, the opposite of righteous. And so the offer of trying to take some place of another and take their pain or something like that, I think that what we see here is that it is a sign of righteousness.
[01:05:37] That doesn't mean that everything that those people do is righteous or that they're perfect. And Moses and David are great examples of that. But it is a pattern of the righteous person. This is how you are to live your life. And Jesus did it perfectly, and Jesus did it in ways that we can't, and Jesus did things for us that we cannot do. None of this removes the fact that we need a Savior and that Jesus is doing something amazing here that needed to be done that nobody else could do.
[01:06:13] I'm gonna hear people say in the background, " Okay, fine. Some of these examples aren't what we thought they were. But what about ransom? Ransom means payment. Payment means exchange. Exchange means substitution." That's a really fair question. So next episode, that is what we're gonna look at. We're gonna look at the theme of ransom and redemption. Again, we're gonna look at the data. Firstborn redemption, census ransom, the prohibition of ransom for murder. Ideas like humans can't ransom others from death, and so on and so forth.
[01:06:54] And I'm gonna say right here, ransom may involve release, redemption, exchange, payment, claim, belonging, deliverance, rescue from danger, return from exile, liberation from slavery, averting plague, and national and even geopolitical exchange. But none of that automatically means that an innocent substitute receives the punishment of the guilty. So we've got a ways to go for that here.
[01:07:25] I hope this episode was useful to frame things and look at it in a vastly different light than what you usually hear from the lens of PSA. This is exploration and our desire is to draw the meaning out of the text rather than simply to import our theology.
[01:07:46] I hope you guys are enjoying all of this. And again, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the episodes and participating in various places in the discussion. Really appreciate all of that. And I highly appreciate all of you who are financial supporters on Patreon, PayPal, and in my biblical theology community. I just really deeply appreciate all of you. But that is it for this week. And I wish you all a blessed week. And we will see you later.
