Atonement: Penal Substitution's Wrong Framework (Part 2)

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:02]There is zeal in his heart and fire in his eyes.

[00:00:14]May it burn away the trust.

[00:00:17]They bear the light fil in your eyes.

[00:00:34]I'm living by your burning.

[00:00:41]That's life.

[00:00:54]Well, hello everyone and welcome to Refining Exoggetics, a podcast and biblical studies channel which aims to inspire life-changing interpretations of the Bible and our stories through unique explorations of modern biblical scholarship and ancient wisdom. I'm your host Jared Casper and uh welcome to uh tonight's live stream. Uh this is going to be part two of my presentation on what I present as the biblical model of atonement uh called priestly purification.

[00:01:26]And uh in contrast uh and what I hope as as a is a uh uh definitive challenge and reputation of the penal substitution framework and how it reads these uh the relevant scriptures. Uh so again, welcome. Um let me know in the chat if you're there in the chat if you can hear me great. Uh all good if I need to raise or lower my volume. Um with that said, um so uh let's uh continue on uh from part one. Uh so centuries of inherited frameworks have taught us to confirm the Bible rather than hear it.

[00:02:13]And most of us have never been shown the difference. This is the place where we learn to actually listen.

[00:02:19]So, uh, most of us were handed Isaiah 53 already interpreted. Uh, we were given the conclusions through a systematic theology before we ever read the text.

[00:02:29]The suffering servant as a legal standin, observing a penalty on our behalf, satisfying a divine requirement that demanded punishment.

[00:02:38]Uh and because the framework arrived first uh we interpreted the text inside it. Uh the words seem to confirm what we already believed. Uh but the text resists this kind of handling. When you actually follow the ark of Isaiah 53 from its opening lines to its close, when you let it build the way the prophet built it, what you encounter is not a courtroom.

[00:03:01]It is a martyrdom.

[00:03:04]And the figure at the center is not a defendant absorbing punishment in place of others. He is a priest anointed and sent who enters into the suffering his people's rebellion has created, lifts their weight before God and is vindicated, raised up, exalted, given offspring and length of days on the other side of it. This matters far beyond a theological debate. Uh because the question of who the servant is and what he is doing is also the question of what his people are called to do.

[00:03:33]The apostolic writers read Isaiah 53 as the pattern of a life, a way of moving through the world in faithfulness, absorbing injustice without retaliating, trusting the father's vindicating rather than grasping for your own. Uh that is not the pattern of penal transaction.

[00:03:51]It is a pattern of a forerunner and it is the pattern we are called to imitate.

[00:03:57]The Passover carries the same stakes.

[00:04:00]The story most of us were told is that the lamb died in place of Israel's firstborn sons. That the blood on the doorpost was a signal that judgment had already fallen on a substitute and that God's wrath could pass over the because the penalty had been paid. It's a coherent story. It is also not what Exodus says. The destroyer was sent against Egypt. Israel was never in the path of that judgment. The Passover is not a story about escaping a sentence.

[00:04:27]It's a story about God who acts as the kinsman redeemer of his people who claims them, marks them as his own and sits down to eat with them at the table of deliverance.

[00:04:37]And that distinction is not minor. A God who requires a penalty to be paid before he can love you is a different God from the one who comes to rescue you be because you belong to him.

[00:04:50]The gospel changes shape depending on which story you are living inside.

[00:04:58]So uh want to go ahead and jump into this presentation. Uh uh I hope that you will stick around because after I'm done with the presentation uh there will be opportunity to um there'll be opportunity to uh join I I and I'll bring you up and we can have a discussion uh whether you agree or disagree with whatever whatever I'm going to present. Um, I hope that there will be those who actually will uh disagree uh and that's totally fine. Uh, and I'd be happy to have a uh a cordial discussion and talk uh through uh through those things. So, uh, with that said, let's let's bring up our presentation.

[00:05:50]So again uh the what I'm presenting in terms of atonement uh it's called purification by you call is priestly purification atonement um and this is a biblical theology against and so we've already gone through part one I've have covered a a lot of information but right now we're going to dive right into Isaiah 53. Three.

[00:06:39]So uh the the full song is actually uh the fourth servant song in Isaiah actually goes from 52:13 to 53:12.

[00:06:49]Um and this is the fourth servant song.

[00:06:52]It it's a passage most frequently cited in support of penal substitutionary atonement.

[00:06:57]I want to work through it carefully section by section because I believe a rigorous exesus of this text actually dismantles PSA rather than supporting it. Uh the song is a poetic construction of five stanzas with three verses each roughly. Uh that's roughly the um the breakdown there. Uh the prologue 5213 through 15 introduces the controlling themes of the whole passage.

[00:07:26]Uh now I uh some of what I a lot of what I'm going to be presenting uh sort of follows uh Peter Gentry's analysis of uh the prologue uh pretty pretty closely. I follow that though I I don't I depart from his uh distinctly PSA conclusions.

[00:07:48]Sometimes he draws some because again he like a lot of us um uh we this is sort of the framework that we're given or that we initially come to this text with is this framework of pen substitution and uh as much as we look at the this the uh the data and do a careful exes of the text sometimes that lens uh can color the conclusions that we arrive at from the from the data or might even direct us and coming to even looking at the the data incorrectly. So opens with behold my servant shall act wisely. That's verse 13. And this verb acts wisely is a deliberate illusion to the wisdom tradition.

[00:08:48]Why do I say that? Well, uh, so there is a, uh, there is a wisdom tradition within Judaism, uh, and within our early, uh, Jewish literature, uh, that, um, and we may even have opportunity to talk about this a little bit when we get if we talk about in chapters 2 and three. Um, there's a lot of tie in to Isaiah 53 in wisdom literature. Uh you even see this in proverbs uh in some of the psalms uh where uh somebody acting wisely and heeding instruction will come into situations of affliction and the people who are not wise foolish look upon this righteous person who's acting wisely and will actually seek to persecute him. Uh well, we see that a lot in the gospels, don't we? We see the people uh the Jewish leaders um seeking to trap him, seeking to give false accusation against him. uh and uh because they they want to think that God is against him and that they're doing the work of God by afflicting him, by persecuting him, and they're turning around and saying, "See, God uh is striking you even though we're the ones that are striking you." And so that's the interplay there that's going on. Uh but this whole picture and that this motif that runs through the entire suffering servant song is one of lowly condition affliction uh and yet through uh wisdom he will be exalted. Um he submits to the humble state um but understands that God uh lifts up and exalts the humble and brings down the proud.

[00:11:10]So, um It's a time that go Well, I'm sorry, folks. Uh, I'm having some technical difficulties here. Uh the stream has uh I was kicked out of the uh the stream and trying to get things worked back out. Uh let me know if you can hear me now. I know things were sort of glitching out pretty bad. I might have to forego having my camera on.

[00:15:40]Yeah, let me know in the chat if you guys are still there.

[00:16:27]Yeah, I again I apologize. I don't know how much of this is making it into the live stream or not. I've had some technical difficult difficulties on my end. Uh a storm has uh come in and is wreaking havoc on my network uh signal.

[00:16:42]So I apologize folks. I'm not sure if uh this is going to work tonight or not.

[00:16:52]Let me know in the chat if you can hear me.

[00:17:26]again. Yeah, I apologize. Um, let's see. I can smooth things over a little bit.

[00:18:17]Okay. Well, there's probably going to be a bit of a delay uh or lag time. Again, I apologize, folks. I don't know what's going on. This uh usually goes smoothly.

[00:18:28]Um, but I'm going to backtrack a little bit, uh, and see if we can get going again.

[00:18:40]So, uh, just a a quick recap, uh, we're we are diving into Isaiah 53, uh, and, um, looking at it from an exogetical standpoint from the original language.

[00:18:55]We're going to be primarily focused on the Hebrew uh text.

[00:19:00]Wow, I'm still breaking up.

[00:19:29]All right. Uh just going to see if uh I did turn some things off. So hopefully that clears up some bandwidth and we can move forward.

[00:19:41]I'll keep checking the chat to see if uh anything is uh better or worse.

[00:19:52]All right. Uh so um the servant is described as high and lifted up and exalted and the reason for his exaltation is introduced immediately.

[00:20:04]Though many are appalled at his appearance, God is working through his suffering to exalt him. The structure of 52:14-15 is significant.

[00:20:14]uh Gent Gentry uh who I mentioned earlier whose commentary uh um I follow pretty closely here identifies the clausal construction as mirroring ex mirroring Exodus 11:12 uh uh in Exodus 12 it's it's kind of juaposing the oppression of Israel um by Pharaoh and Egypt uh juxtaposing that with the fact that even under that even so they increased and multiplied. Uh and uh so we have this phraseiology of just as they were mistreating, just as they mistreated them, so they increased and so they spread. Uh this is quite a bit like what uh 52:14-15 is constructed as. Um uh just as Egypt's oppression could not prevent Israel m multiplication and growth so the servant's humiliation does not prevent indeed is the very occasion for his anointing and exaltation. Uh the word in 5214b typically translated as marred is on gentry's reading better rendered anointing.

[00:21:27]Uh that the Hebrew word is mish mishkath.

[00:21:32]uh and the verb in 5215A often translated as startle is more accurately rendered sprinkle.

[00:21:40]Uh and he uh gentry gives some pretty convincing arguments to that effect. Um so the very action of the high priest who sprinkles the blood in the holy place is what the servant is doing uh to the nations. Uh the servant in other words is being introduced as the anointed high priest who will sprinkle many nations.

[00:22:04]This sets up everything that follows.

[00:22:07]The servant is not a penal substitute.

[00:22:09]He is the high priest anointed above all others commissioned to perform the ultimate purification right.

[00:22:16]Uh the second stanza 53 1-3 describes oh let's see I think I might need to advance the slide here.

[00:22:32]Well, let's keep going.

[00:22:37]Um, so the third stanza provides the theological interpretation of that suffering. Uh, verse four introduces the verbs nasa that is to lift up, carry, and sabal to bear as a weight. uh the context of the high priestly ministry as depicted throughout Leviticus and Numbers. NASA is the word used when the high priest lifts up the iniquities of the people before the Lord intercession in order to remove them. Uh this is um let's see I might need to see let me pull something up here real quick. Bear with me, folks. So, I'm going to bring up something So uh you know when Isaiah 53:4 says surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Uh and even some translations are the idea is bearing sins and iniquities which is something that comes up later. uh we read this bear language and within the penal substitution framework that we're often handed uh that we're sort of raised in um this bearing language immediately conjures up an idea of being punished for for sins. Um you're bearing the penalty or bearing the punishment. Um, and that's just not the case because like I said um there's a lot of priestly motifs going on in the suffering servant song.

[00:24:52]And um within that priestly context in like I said Leviticus and Numbers that verb nasa bear to lift up carry uh is uh is intimately connected to the actions of a high priest uh who carries iniquities before the Lord to remove them. It's fundamentally an act of intercession. Uh and the result of that the that bearing is that the iniquities, the transgressions and whatever he's bearing is removed.

[00:25:28]Um and the the high priest is is uniquely sanctified and set apart in order to do that function.

[00:25:42]Uh this is not a literal transference of guilt to the priest. There is no concept of imputation present in this verb. The high priest carries the burden of the people's iniquities before God. He intercedes so that God will cleanse them away. The relevant word for imputation would be uh to reckon to account and it appears nowhere in this song. Uh to read imputation into nasa is simply to import a concept the text does not use.

[00:26:13]Uh Matthew's gospel actually clarifies this for us. This verse uh four uh in Matthew 8:17 after describing Jesus healing the sick and casting out demons, Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4 as being fulfilled in those acts as of healing.

[00:26:30]He took bore our infirmities and carried our diseases. The sense Matthew gives to Nissah is carried away removed not had them transferred to him and was punished for them. When Isaiah says, "The servant bore our griefs," the meaning is that he carried them away from us, removed them by the power of his life and ministry.

[00:26:51]Uh verse four also includes what I considered a crucial contrasting clause.

[00:26:57]Again, uh what's what's reiterated, the motif that's reiterated throughout the suffering servant song is the contrast between how the people perceive the servant and what was actually going on with the servant.

[00:27:12]Uh the people thought the servant was being smitten by God and afflicted. Uh this is the second half of that. Uh you know though um surely the servant was uh carrying their griefs um bearing and lifting up their sorrows.

[00:27:31]Uh and again in the context of how the New Testament itself interprets this phrase is talking about removing and is is healing. Um even though he was doing that we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

[00:27:47]Uh so uh this is a direct statement that their perception was wrong. It's that yet we that's a that's an adversative a contrastive. Uh the rhetorical flow of the entire song has been setting up this contrast. How things appear versus how things actually are. The people see divine punishment. God sees the exaltation of his priest.

[00:28:13]And like I mentioned before in the in the opening, uh wisdom of Solomon and other wisdom literature uh in Jewish tradition comes into play. When we read of Solomon chapter 3 1-9, it describes where the suffering of the righteous looks like punishment to observers, but is actually God's testing and perfecting of those who belong to him.

[00:28:37]The apostles inhabited the same interpretive tradition.

[00:28:43]And it is this tradition, not PSA, that governs their reading of the cross.

[00:28:57]So verse five, this is the lynch pin for PSA readings. Uh so I want to spend some time here. Uh, and we and I did cover some of this near the tail end of of part one when I'm dealing with the the Hebrew preposition mean in this in this chapter. Uh, we're going to deal with it a bit more here. Uh there are so many commentaries and commentators and videos and teachings on Isaiah 53 that when they get to this verse, if they don't already have a penal substitutionary reading or they're seeking to read Isaiah 53:5 in some way other than PSA, what they usually do is just grant the English translation and then just try to say, "Well, we could read it this way and and not a PSA way." I am not going to take that approach here. I'm going to go straight to the Hebrew text and do something that I haven't really seen much of anybody, even scholarly commentaries do, uh, that they totally gloss over. Um, let's see.

[00:30:13]Um, yeah, sorry. Uh, got distracted there for a second. Um, and I'm going what I what I'm going to do is actually give you the Hebrew text and actually read it the way it's supposed to be read. I'll just put it that way. Um, and and this will make sense when I when I talk about it. Uh so all English translations apart from those who maybe uh are based off of the LXX which has a slightly uh render slightly a different um reading and we'll comment on that later.

[00:30:59]Uh most English translations have he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

[00:31:10]uh as I discussed in the earlier section let's see so the Hebrew preposition mean uh as I said in part one uh that's uh that preposition means uh out of it means source or origin or cause. Uh it's generally rendered from or out of um in pretty much all through the Hebrew scriptures except for Isaiah 53 for some reason. Uh I think I I I have an idea of what that reason is, but um I'll just table that for a second. And um so this is the preposition that features in the traditional Jewish blessing prayer for the uh bread.

[00:32:23]Blessed is Lord our God, King of the universe who brings forth bread out of the earth and mean uh fundamentally the special relation there is something is coming out of or originating out of uh something else.

[00:32:38]Um and that's the spatial relation that is uh mean. So uh whatever the noun that mean is governing in the prepositional phrase, that noun is um the cause or what the um what the primary verb is is uh is coming out of. So in this passage it it should actually be read as he was wounded from or out of our transgressions. He was crushed or bruised out of or from our iniquities.

[00:33:21]Um in like I said in virtually every other context in the Hebrew scriptures mean is rendered this way as out of or from. But in Isaiah 53:5, the English translations almost universally render it as for he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. This rendering quite naturally suggests a purposive or substitutionary relationship in English vernacular.

[00:33:48]uh he suffered for our sins um instead of suffering for his own sins kind of that's that's what we're sort of primed by this for language or he was pierced instead of us because of our transgressions or something of that nature. Uh but again this is not what the preposition mean uh uh communicates. Mean answers the question what caused this not what purpose did this serve. Uh so again that that's critical because if you read for as purposes uh purposive uh he was there was a purpose he was wounded and that purpose was for our transgressions. our transgressions deserve something and that something was being wounded and pierced and bruised and crushed. Um, and that happened to the servant for for the purpose of the transgressions. That's what that's how the preposition for primes us to think. And it's hard to get out of that mindset. What I hope to do is to break you of that mindset right now um by bringing you back to the Hebrew text. Uh mean does not mean for.

[00:34:56]It is not a purposeive uh uh preposition in Hebrew. It never gets rendered that way anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

[00:35:06]Um and there's no there's no reason at all to render it as four in this uh passage. So you just need to I'm sorry to say folks, but you just need to strike for out of your English translation. you need to you need to cross it out and you need to put from or out of or even by would work too. Um but um that's just what you have to do. Um I've ran this by uh Hebrew Grimarians and and have pressed them on this and they they they agree. I mean there there is no reason to render this as four.

[00:35:50]Um so a simple analogy uh can make this clear like I say and I again I'm reiterating some of this but this is important. I want to tie all this together. uh in an analogy would let's say uh you have an industrial uh working environment and you have some workers and they're doing some work on big machinery uh uh if I say he was injured from their negligence let's say like uh you have a co-orker who goes into a dangerous area and there's other co-workers who have neglected to uh implement safety measures uh and because of that negligence uh one of the crew crew members uh gets severely injured by a piece of machinery that was supposed to be disconnected from power at a certain time and it wasn't. Um and he got severely injured.

[00:36:48]We could say that he was injured from their negligence from their negligence.

[00:36:53]We wouldn't say he was injured for their negligence. Um it wasn't that the purpose of his injuring was was their negligence. No, the cause of his injury was their negligence. The injury came out of their negligence. That's literally what mean uh is denoting. Uh and the Hebrew would use the preposition mean to communicate that. In in English, we might also say he was injured by their negligence. What we would not say is he was injured by the manager for their negligence as if some purpose of legal mechanism were at work.

[00:37:31]Um so like I said he was the correct rendering would be he was pierced from our transgressions. He was wounded from our iniquities.

[00:37:43]That is our transgressions and iniquities were what caused his suffering. Uh this is entirely consistent with the flow of the chapter.

[00:37:50]The people turned away and went their own way and their rebellion brought its violence and oppression down upon the servant who was trying to intercede for them.

[00:37:59]So let's come back to um yeah let's come back here.

[00:38:09]So again we're uh we're moving on. We're in verse 5. Uh, our transgressions caused his piercing.

[00:38:22]Our iniquities brought about his crushing. This is entirely consistent with everything the song has said up to this point. The people's rebellion and wewardness is precisely what turned against the servant. When they finally encountered the righteous one who was interceding for them, they rejected him and handed him over to be destroyed.

[00:38:48]The verb uh daka which also also uh appears in verse 5. Uh it gets rendered in English translations as crushed or bruised. Uh it has its own semantic field that does not naturally extend to penal substitution.

[00:39:05]In Isaiah 57:15, the same root dakah describes the contrite spirit.

[00:39:12]God dwells with the one of a contrite and lowly spirit to revive them. In Psalm 34:18, the Lord saves the crushed, dhaka in spirit.

[00:39:26]So notice that uh dha is is is is speaking of a state of humbleness of contritess of being low lowly. Um so that uh and what's what's distinguished about this is that these passages speak of God drawing near and saving this one. So we should really have in mind and Isaiah is making this clear later on and this is still Isaiah talking when he says that um God dwells with the one of contrite and lowly spirit. When we read that the servant is crushed or da brought low, humbled um by their iniquities, we need to understand that God that this is signaling somebody who is brought low due to uh wickedness and afflictions of people and God draws near and he will save him. That's that's literally what should be in our minds when we read verse 5.

[00:40:33]Continuing on in Proverbs 22:22, the phrase to quote crush the afflicted, that's the same word, Dhaka, is paralleled with robbing the poor. It is the language of oppression and humiliation, not of penally sanctioned punishment.

[00:40:51]In this context, the servant being quote crushed refers to his being humiliated and brought low through the violence and oppression of the wicked. The very dynamic introduced in the prologue Go figure.

[00:41:10]And let me know in the chat if um if you're if everything's still good. Um if you're still there. Um, by the way, if you're listening into this and um uh uh let me know in the chat. Uh submit your questions. If you got questions about things, if you want something specific that you want me to address that I that I am not addressing here, um some questions you have, put them in the chat and I'd be happy to uh address them as uh as we move along.

[00:41:49]Uh so there is also no connection anywhere in the Torah between quote crushing and piercing and the divinely appointed penalty for sin. The penal prescriptions of the law never describe crushing or piercing as punishments. So the claim that these verbs describe a quote penal substitute bearing the just punishment for sin it has no exogetical ground to stand on the language of punishment in the law looks entirely different.

[00:42:17]Now the second half of verse 5 upon him was the chastisement uh that in English translations you have everything from chastisement to punishment to discipline. Um um that Hebrew word is mousar. Uh the word musar is as I said at the outset the key word in the wisdom tradition for instruction. I mentioned this in the uh when we talking about the prologue. It said the servant will be wise.

[00:42:53]Um let's see.

[00:43:02]So yes uh this is the word mousar that's uh prominently in wisdom tradition for instruction, correction and discipline.

[00:43:12]It is the disciplining of a son by a father who loves him. The Aramaic taram's rendering of Isaiah 535 uh lines uh 3 and 4 is instructive here.

[00:43:24]uh the Aramaic Tarum like for instance Tarum Jonathan on Isaiah 53:5 says quote by his teaching shall his peace be multiplied upon us and by our devotion to his words our transgressions shall be forgiven us. So notice that the tarum the Aramaic Tarum uh renders the Hebrew with the Targum or with sorry the Aramaic word for teaching instruction.

[00:43:51]Uh that's important because the the editor knows what Hebrew Msar means in the context of wisdom uh literature um and in the context of Isaiah 53. uh he understands that this is talking about instruction, wise instruction, teaching uh and adds the further note that um it's um the the Aramaic I believe is taking the Hebrew uh with his wounds we are healed. That last line of Isaiah 53:5 and I believe he's he's understanding that as with his wounds like in unity with his wounds we are healed. Uh so just so in the Aramaic poetic mind uh frame of mind that's at play here, he's understanding that the servant is going through something that we are that uh that brings vindication to the servant that justifies the servant. Um and we too are to follow in those steps. He's manifesting the instruction, the discipline of God that brings forth peace.

[00:45:01]and uh we're meant to be obedient to that teaching, follow in his footsteps, and therefore our transgression shall be forgiven us.

[00:45:12]That's really the headsp space of the Aramaic target. And it's very in uh insightful uh when we're actually trying to figure out what the what the Hebrew the the underlining Hebrew of the text is saying. Folks, this is not punishment. This is not legal transaction, punishment, penalty language. Not at all. It's nowhere at all in the uh frame of reference uh for that Isaiah is speaking within.

[00:45:41]Misar is speaking of uh instruction of a father to a son to bring up the son. The the LXX is instructive too in this verse because it uses the noun um renders Mousar with the noun of uh discipline in Greek. The very noun that is used in reference to fathers raising up and instructing their sons into maturity.

[00:46:12]So, uh that that would bring us to uh look at a passage like Hebrews 12.

[00:46:26]If we read from verse 4, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

[00:46:35]So, uh notice who are we talking about here? uh whose example is the author of Hebrews just now talking about? Well, he's talking about Jesus, the the forerunner and perfector of our faith uh who we're to fix our eyes on uh who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning it shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Here we have uh enduring cross suffering at the hands of wicked, scorning at shame, going through that uh not reviling um uh and being faithful to God and then being exalted to sit down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. That's just before he starts talking about uh uh how we are to live in imitation of that. uh he says in quoting I think this is what is this Proverbs 4:26 I think that he quotes he says my son do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord uh and do not lose heart when he rebukes you for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and he chastises every son he receives actually I'm sorry that uh that's Proverbs 3 um so the discipline here. That's that's the word that is in the the Septuagent for Isaiah 53:5 that renders the Hebrew Mousar. Um so if you're disciplined, that shows that you are a son. Um verse 7 in Hebrews 12 says, "Endure suffering as discipline. God is treating you as sons.

[00:48:26]For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you do not experience discipline like everyone else, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

[00:48:36]Um, and then he goes on to say, uh, no discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace. Wow. To those who have been trained by it. Uh, so here we have the the fruit of this discipline is peace.

[00:48:55]This sounds exactly like what Isaiah 53 is communicating. So um knowing this and knowing these verbal equivalencies and the the stark uh similarities in the context here about suffering being disciplined, we should understand uh we should not uh think in our minds of Mousar discipline in the sense of punitive uh penalty, punishment um him being him receiving the punishment that was due us and that brings peace. No, that that's just not at all going on here. You can't get that from the Hebrew text. Um, and that's why I'm presenting the Hebrew and the Greek to you. Uh, this is so important.

[00:49:45]Um, because uh, think about this what's at stake here. If you read it in the traditional PSA reading, then uh, you don't had to submit to God's discipline.

[00:49:56]Well, Jesus did it for you. He did it in your place. So you don't have to go through that now. He's the one who's lived righteously and you don't have to.

[00:50:05]Um he did it for you in your place. Uh that uh think about mentally and spiritually, emotionally what what that does you. It it does not engender a um a view of oh I should walk wisely.

[00:50:22]Um but think about it instead in terms of the servant in the midst of afflictions and wickedness when he walks out in perfect obedience to God uh heeding that instruction walking wisely being uh afflicted by the persecution and the violence of wicked men and then God vindicates him. Think about what that does. It's like, oh, it wakes you up to realize, it wakes the people who had who had done this to uh the servant.

[00:50:56]It wakes them up to realize, wow, we have gone so far astray. Um, we had we've turned our own way. We haven't heeded the the way of God, and this servant has just displayed the way of God perfectly before us, and we are a party to his uh humiliation and his crushing. Um, and we need to wake up.

[00:51:18]And that's exactly what Isaiah 53 is meant to do.

[00:51:22]That's why the people when Peter uh preached the first gospel uh on the day of Pentecost to the the crowds of Jews uh from all different places, they were pierced to the heart. They realized, wow, we have gone so far astray. What what did we do to be saved? Um, so that that's exactly uh what's going on there.

[00:51:51]All right.

[00:52:01]So, let's continue on.

[00:52:20]So another passage in Hebrews that bears upon this is Hebrews 5:7-10.

[00:52:26]Uh this is the apostolic commentary on this very dynamic that we've been talking about.

[00:52:32]says uh all quote although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him being designated by God a high priest after the order of MelkiseDC end quote so the mousar on the servant is not the father punishing the son in our place is the father's instrument for perfecting the son through suffering the same instrument the author of Hebrews invites his audience to embrace in chapter 12 when he quotes Proverbs 3:11-2 about the Lord's discipline of those he loves. There is simply no penal substitution framework here.

[00:53:16]So verse six concludes the stanza with the corporate confession. Quote, "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Again, I'm reading the ESV. Um, there uh the verb at the end uh paga which is in the hyphel stem here is the same verb used in 5312 where it is correctly translated made intercession for.

[00:53:47]Um the the verb literally uh paga is to uh to interpose to be between Uh so the lord caused his servant to bear to make intercession for the iniquity of us all.

[00:54:11]Uh so the hifle causitive form of the of pag in the context of intercession means the lord set his servant as the intercessor who lifts up and carries the people's iniquities before him. So this is one. So this is sort of uh um going further with the with the priestly motif um in the sense that uh we're we're looking at an intercessory action and a function which is what a priest does.

[00:54:45]Now, there is another way to take this uh um and there's some there's maybe a couple English translations that uh pick up on the semantic use of this term paga. Um it uh which gets translated as uh the Lord caused our iniquities to strike him. And this comes from a sense of uh where the the verb is talking about causing to meet where causing two things to meet.

[00:55:20]Um, and when we're we're talk if we're talking about a servant and uh iniquities and we bring in what we already understand about this passage up until now, especially in five where uh it describes the people bruising and wounding the servant uh from their iniquities, from their uh transgressions.

[00:55:48]Uh it would seem a a very valid and correct way of reading the end of verse six as the Lord caused our iniquities to strike him.

[00:56:03]Uh the LXX renders it in this way. The Lord has delivered him up on account of our transgressions uh or delivered over. Uh it it's sort of this this language of the Lord you just giving him over to our transgressions.

[00:56:25]Um and what this brings to mind I mean my mind goes to a number of different uh places here but just being honest what what this brings to mind is uh the oracle in in Zechariah uh where it says where God says to the people strike the shepherd and the people will scatter. Um and this is in the context of uh understanding in in this passage in Zechariah what's already been discussed is the fact that the people have uh stried and strike out against and and murdered the prophets uh or previous shepherds. Uh so it's sort of God knows what's in the hearts of the people and God nonetheless uh decides to deliver over the shepherd that he has raised up to them.

[00:57:20]Uh and this is sort of the backdrop to why in the gospels what's freak when like in Matthew uh and also in John chap chapter 12 it figures prominently there when Jesus is describing when he's predicting the way he's going to die to his disciples uh he says the son of man will be handed over will to be delivered over that's the same verb that's uh here in the septuagent version of verse six so really the lord Lord is delivering the servant over. He's causing the iniquities to strike him. Uh that's what I that's what what I lean towards. I mean it's possible to render it in the sense of the the servant coming between and interceding.

[00:58:05]uh but uh I I fundamentally uh I I think the best rendering is to view it in terms of what we already see in verse five is that the the servant is being handed over and the people are striking him. Um, and this is again meant to wake the people up to realize they've gone so far astray um that they've uh that they've it was they've struck the servant um who is meant to uh bring healing.

[00:58:46]So let's see uh moving on to stanza.

[00:58:55]uh four.

[00:58:58]We're going to kind of go uh put four and five together. Uh stanza four, which is 7:es 7-9, describes the servants silence and unjust death. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He did not open his mouth. This is the posture of the innocent one who entrusts himself to God's vindication rather than the retaliating rather than retaliating against his uh persecutors.

[00:59:23]Verse 9 notes that he was assigned a grave with the wicked even though he had done no violence and no deceit but is in his in his mouth. This is the culmination of the injustice. The innocent servant is treated as a criminal. Again, this is uh in verse nine.

[00:59:43]I back back up here.

[00:59:47]Yeah. Uh verse 9. Actually, we could we could really talk about verse eight first. Um, this from oppression and judgment he was taken away.

[00:59:57]Um, or by oppression and judgment he was taken away. So, this is this is describing inherently an injustice um and of this one being cut off from the land of the living um and stricken from their transgressions. There's that same preposition again uh from not for um yeah so stanza five uh this is a a critical one uh verses 10- 12 uh this is the divine vindication yet it was the will of the lord to crush him he has put him to grief is verse 10 or well we go on to the next line. Uh when his soul makes an offering for guilt or an offering for sin as the Septuagent uh version puts it. Uh this verse read through a PSA lens becomes it pleased God to punish Jesus instead of us. But the verb again this is the same verb in verse 5 dhaka uh as I analyzed above means to humble to make contrite to bring low. And the guilt offering asham framing does not require a penal reading. The asham in Leviticus is not primarily about receiving punishment. Uh it is about making restoration. Uh God's pleasure in crushing the servant is the pleasure of the refiner who tests gold in the furnace. A direct echo of wisdom 36 which the apostolic tradition drew on extensively.

[01:01:38]The father was perfecting his priest through the humiliation of unjust suffering. And it might uh be good for me to even bring up uh wisdom of Solomon chapter 3.

[01:02:00]Let's go to chapter 3.

[01:02:08]So this is speaking about the life of uh the righteous before God. Um the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. This is verse one. And no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seem to have died and their departure was thought to be a disaster and they're going from us to be their destruction, but they are at peace. There's that idea of peace um being the fruit of the righteous life. Uh for though in the sight of others it seemed they were punished, their hope is full of immortality.

[01:02:48]Having been disciplined a little, that's the same Greek verb uh the verbal form of the noun discipline that renders the Hebrew msar. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good.

[01:03:01]Because God tested them and found them worthy of himself. Like gold in the furnace, he tried them. And like a sacrificial burnt off offering, he accepted them. In the time of their visitation, they will shine forth and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever.

[01:03:24]Um, so, uh, if you if you're paying attention to that and you have Isaiah 53 in your mind, I mean, you should see a direct one for one correlation there.

[01:03:36]Um, many people have not made that connection. But what Isaiah 53:4 and 5 uh make sort of poetically this uh wisdom literature and wisdom of Solomon chapter 3 is making very explicit. I mean it's it's very explicit very clear there uh that uh the PSA reading of this of the servant taking the penalty and being punished by God. That is exactly what the wisdom literature says is the outlook of the foolish person who does not know God who does not walk with God. So that uh I want to uh um without uh making this an attack of people on people who are PSA proponents. This is an attack on not an attack on people.

[01:04:36]This is an attack on against the PSA framework, the PSA lens.

[01:04:43]Think about what it causes you to do. Uh this lens causes you to agree with the foolish person to agree with those who persecuted uh and um that they thought that they were doing God's work that they were um that this person was being punished by God.

[01:05:04]No.

[01:05:06]Uh you need to throw PSA out the door.

[01:05:10]Throw it in the trash where it belongs cuz we are not to be foolish people. way to be wise and understand the truth of the matter. And so I'm presenting you the truth of the matter. Um uh that uh wisdom of Solomon is a great companion to read uh to understand the correct frame of reference of both Isaiah 53 and the uh crucifixion narratives of the gospels.

[01:05:42]Um, so I I hope that you will uh make you will you will start to read those two side by side and and draw the correct connections.

[01:05:55]So verse 10 continues, "He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days.

[01:06:01]The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." This is resurrection language. The servant who is put to death sees offspring and prolongs his days.

[01:06:12]This is an impossibility unless God restores his life. And verse 11 gives the result.

[01:06:19]Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

[01:06:32]The servant's knowledge, his teaching and wisdom, is what makes many righteous.

[01:06:38]Again, this is why the the Aramaic Tarum in verse 5 wraps it up with, "And by obedience to his instruction, our sins, our transgressions will be forgiven."

[01:06:50]Um, and he bears their iniquities in the intercessory priestly sense. He lists them before the father to be cleansed and removed.

[01:07:02]So the absence of penal and legal language throughout this song is quite remarkable. God's anger is never mentioned. God's wrath is nowhere invoked. There is no language of legal penalty, judicial debt, or punishment being transferred.

[01:07:19]What there is throughout is the language of suffering and humiliation caused by the people's rebellion of a servant who remained faithful through that suffering of intercession and purification and of God's vindication and exaltation of the servant who trusted him.

[01:07:35]Isaiah 53 is a song about the messianic high priest who completes Israel's vocation by succeeding where Israel failed. It is not a proof text for penal substitution.

[01:07:47]Again, if you are uh joining in the chat, uh let me know uh if you have any questions up to this point. Um if you if there's anything that you see I haven't covered.

[01:08:04]I'd be happy to um to address that at some point. And we are going to have an opportunity uh to open this up for uh discussion. uh I'll I'll pin a a link to join me uh on in this in the stage. Uh if you agree or disagree or want to share some thoughts, I'd be happy to uh to have a a discussion.

[01:08:31]But again, uh if you have questions, particular things that I haven't addressed, uh feel free to uh put them in the chat and um I'll see if I can address them.

[01:08:42]Uh, one thing that was Yeah. So um one one question that was that I didn't get to address in part one was there was a question on whether the crush in verse 10 where it says it pleased the Lord to crush him uh he has put him to grief. Uh there's a question of whether that's the same verb that's in Genesis 3:15. I think it is uh in reference to uh the oracle about or the prophecy about um the seed of the woman will um crush the head of the serpent. Um it's not the same it's not the same verb there. Um I think the verb there in in Genesis 3:15 is something like shuf or something like that. Uh it's not the same it's not really the same semantic range. So no there there I don't see really any connection there. But again dha in verse 10 and verse 5 is primarily its primary uh use is in reference to uh humility uh contritess.

[01:10:08]All right. So, now we're going to move into uh let's see.

[01:10:20]Uh like Tantius, uh but it's irrational irrational to make the claims you're making. Yeah. Uh I mean feel free to point out any uh uh any claim that uh you're referring to uh and and if there's um like I said there'll be opportunity um I definitely invite you to to come up after I'm done with the presentation uh we can have cordial discussion. I'm not one who is given to cross-examining or interrogating uh guests. Uh I like having discussions and and sort of uh parsing out views. So I'd be happy to have you uh uh join if if you're still available at that time. Um at the end of the presentation um yeah uh I I do not take it that way. Uh I'm I'm very thick skinned. Uh, and I actually uh like having conversations with people who disagree. So, um, no no no no hurt feelings there, brother.

[01:11:38]Yeah, it's all good. Um, so we're going to move into talking about the Passover.

[01:11:43]Um, this is another passage that often gets uh foisted uh as a proof text for penal substitution.

[01:11:52]Um, let's see.

[01:11:59]So, um, the standard PSA reading of the Passover goes something like this. The death angel was coming to strike all the firstborn sons, including Israel's. The lamb was killed as a substitute so that its death would stand in for the death of Israel's firstborn sons. The blood on the doorpost appeased the death angel by demonstrating that a substitute had already died. And this prefigures Christ dying as our substitute so that God's wrath passes over us.

[01:12:29]Uh this reading has serious problems.

[01:12:32]They are not minor. First, the death angel was not sent to strike Israel at all. Exodus 12 is explicit. The destroyer came against Egypt, against Pharaoh and his people. Israel was never in the path of that judgment. The dynamic of the Passover is not that all are under the same sentence and one party must supply a substitute to take the blow. Uh the dynamic is that God is redeeming his firstborn son Israel from the oppressive powers of Egypt by a mighty act of deliverance.

[01:13:05]Second, uh the language of substitution is entirely absent from the Passover narrative. The lamb was not described as dying in the place of anyone.

[01:13:17]It was slaughtered for two specific purposes. To provide its blood to mark the doorposts and to supply the meat for the fellowship meal with the Lord. Now the the lamb in this uh Passover event and in the subsequent memorials, it this is a particular type of offering. It's called a shalam uh peace offering, well-being offering. Um this is not a sin offering.

[01:13:45]A sin offering involves goats. Uh this is a lamb. Um and there's no uh temple purification or tabernacle or sanctuary purification right going on. So, this isn't having anything anything to do with uh appeasing God for sins or removing wrath or anything like that. A well-being offering is a is a communion meal with God that you're um uh offering it. Uh to to have you're basically drawing near and you're having uh communion with God.

[01:14:23]Uh you're having a meal. Um, so you you should really think of barbecue when um when you think of of this um the blood is marking the doorpost to show that this household belongs to Israel. Well, think of it. Uh the the angel the destroyer was coming to strike Egypt.

[01:14:45]So if if it sees a door a house with a door post that's marked with blood, that tells the destroyer this is not Egypt.

[01:14:55]This is this is a household that belongs to God. That's what the blood is doing.

[01:15:00]It's a marking of covenant. It marks out the covenant people.

[01:15:04]Uh so um uh yeah. So uh God was it the the blood is a sign of ownership is the point that I'm making.

[01:15:24]God was marking out his people, laying claim to them and setting them apart from Egypt. This is uh explicit in the language of chapter 11 and 12. Uh it says that I will make a distinction between my people Israel and the people of Egypt. Well, how is he going to make that distinction? Well, he gives instructions. This is how you to mark yourselves out as Israel is you put blood of the well-being offering on your doorposts.

[01:15:53]That shows that you are mine. You belong to me. Uh you're not Egypt. You're Israel. So that's how he makes the distinction. So we we should derive the meaning of these things from the text itself and not try to sense make or make our own meaning out of it. Um the the text does that quite well itself.

[01:16:17]The meal was a fellowship meal. That's what a a shalom is. A shared table with the Lord who was redeeming them. Neither of these functions is substitutionary in any sense.

[01:16:30]Uh third, Exodus 13 immediately following the Passover gives us a vital piece of contextual evidence. God commands Israel to redeem all their firstborn sons. If the Passover lamb had already served as a substitute death in the place of the firstborn sons, why would any further redemption or uh ransom, if we're to use that language, be required? The lamb's death would have settled the matter, but it hadn't because that was never what the lamb was for. Rather, God has just ransomed and claimed his firstborn son, Israel, and he is now calling Israel to participate in his own nature as a ransoming redemptive God by ransoming their own firstborns.

[01:17:13]Uh so this is participatory uh ritual. it uh it's to remind Israel that God had ransomed them out of destruction and oppression uh with an outstretched arm. And so they are to participate with God in his own nature as um a people who ransom. So they um they uh they go through this this ritual.

[01:17:53]What the Passover actually depicts is a ransom and redemption. The Exodus event.

[01:17:58]Uh so um whatever you think of what ransom means, we understand that ransom is not a penal substitution.

[01:18:06]uh otherwise it would just use that language. Ransom language is redemption.

[01:18:11]It's uh God is acquiring possession of a people out of a place of oppression and destruction.

[01:18:22]And so that's that's what the the Hebrew and the underlying Greek words mean in the New Testament when it talks of ransom. Uh acquiring God is acquiring a people. He's possessing them.

[01:18:41]So, he is rescuing and redeeming his people from the oppressive powers that had enslaved him. The blood is not a penal token. It is a mark of God's claim and the seal of his covenant faithfulness. And the fellowship meal is not a postpunishment celebration. It is a covenant meal. The very act of belonging to and eating with the God who has redeemed you.

[01:19:04]The typological typological connection to Jesus properly understood flows naturally from this. Jesus is the Passover lamb not because he died as a punitive substitute in our place but because through his blood his life God redeems his people from the enslaving powers of sin and death. The blood of Jesus marks us out as God's own possession. The fellowship meal instituted by Jesus at the last supper, specifically in the context of Passover, is a covenant meal that seals our belonging to him who has redeemed us.

[01:19:36]And just as the Passover ransom delivered Israel from Egypt's bondage, so Jesus blood delivers us from the bondage of sin and death, not by satisfying God's wrath was with a substitute's punishment, but by the power of his indestructible life, breaking the chains of our captivity.

[01:19:54]Paul's language in 1 Corinthians 5:7 Christ quote Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed is drawing on this liberation and covenant marking typology not on a substitutionary penalty typology. The Passover is about ransom and redemption about God claiming and delivering his people about the fellowship of the delivered with the deliverer.

[01:20:18]PSA has overlaid a punitive substitution narrative onto this event that the text simply does not support.

[01:20:31]And so the last part I want to wrap this presentation up with is uh recovering Jesus's priesthood.

[01:20:41]Uh perhaps the deepest shortcoming of the PSA framework is what it makes the resurrection and high priestly ministry of Jesus into. Uh when PSA reduces the atonement to a single moment, the cross and reduces the mechanism to a single transaction, God punishing his son in our place. It effective effect effect effectively empties out the rich active ongoing priesthood of Jesus that the New Testament and especially the letter to the Hebrews places at the very center of the gospel.

[01:21:11]The Levitical high priest was not simply an animal killer. His primary function was intercessory. He stood before God for the sake of the people, bearing their burdens, lifting their iniquities, interceding for their cleansing and restoration.

[01:21:26]The day of atonement ritual encapsulates this. The high priest entered the holy place, made purification for the sanctuary and the people, and then sent the iniquities of the people away into the wilderness on the scapegoat.

[01:21:40]The entire process was one of intercession, purification, and removal.

[01:21:44]The high priest made atonement for all Israel, but only those who humbled themselves and drew near received the benefit of it. Those who rejected it and rebelled found it a word of condemnation rather than cleansing. Likewise, Jesus the high priest makes intercession for all humanity, but only those who humble themselves and draw near to him through faith and obedience are beneficiaries of that intercession. This is why the New Testament consistently frames the reception of atonement in terms of drawing near of faith of obedience to his words not merely a for it's it's not a forensic status change accomplished at a single point in history.

[01:22:28]The letter to the Hebrews builds its entire argument around this priestly framework. Jesus is not presented as a defendant who accepts a punishment on our behalf. He is presented as the ultimate high priest who having been perfected through suffering and obedience entered the heavenly sanctuary to provide for the cleansing of the conscience and the soul. Uh so again the the deficiency of penal substitution and I want to make this clear is that it locates uh both the act and the mechanism of atonement uh specifically at the cross making the resurrection really just sort of a an afterthought like well it just means that God accepted that ultimate payment um for the sins the people um so to speak. Uh but if again if you if you follow the actual uh language of Hebrews, how it draws on the Levitical priesthood and um and the purification rights and all those things, uh g the atonement did not happen at the cross. That's uh the cross had nothing to do with atonement. Um atonement is something very specific and univocal in both testaments. It's the act of a high priest in the sanctuary of purifying and cleansing uh both the sacred space and people. Uh whereas the blood of animals and goats and bulls uh was for the cleansing of flesh.

[01:24:15]Uh Jesus entered the heavenly sanctuary not with blood of bulls and goats but by his indestructible life.

[01:24:26]And that life is now what cleanses the soul.

[01:24:32]And um so for those who draw near in faith, we have our consciousnesses cleansed from dead works. Uh and and so that's the that's and John and and the Apostle John in 1 John 1:8 makes it clear that uh um this is how it's done. We come before him. We confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[01:25:00]Um so there's that cleansing purifying language. That's his role.

[01:25:09]And as I laid out uh kafar to make atonement is fundamentally a cleansing act. So the cleansing act the atonement happens in the heavenly sanctuary post resurrection post ascension. It does not happen at the cross because the cross is not an atoning event.

[01:25:36]So uh here's where the connection to Isaiah 53 becomes decisive. Uh the verb paga in its highle form in verses 6 and 12 which I discussed in the previous section means to make intercession for um the intercessory function of the servant is the climactic note of the entire song. All the bearing, the carrying, the being wounded and crushed, all of it is in the service of his now present intercession. He is doing what the high priest does, lifting the iniquities of the people before the Lord, so that through his righteous obedience and the purification, his life effects, those iniquities will be removed.

[01:26:23]Hebrews also draws attention to the permanence and effectiveness of Jesus' priesthood compared to the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priests were many because death prevented them from continuing in office. Jesus because he lives forever holds his priesthood permanently and is therefore able to save completely those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. lives to make intercession for them. Uh a a dead person on a cross cannot make atonement, but a living high priest can make atonement.

[01:26:58]So that's that's what this is all about.

[01:27:00]PSA uh though it purports to be an atonement theory uh completely uh makes it impossible for atonement um in on their view uh because a dead um person does not make atonement.

[01:27:25]So this has profound imp implications for how we understand phrases like quote the blood of Christ cleanses us. The blood is not a historical substance from a first century body which was hung on a cross.

[01:27:38]It is the ongoing life of the risen ascended Jesus presented before the father in the heavenly sanctuary. When Hebrews says his blood speaks a better word, it is describing something active and present. His life, indestructible and everliving, is the cleansing agent that continually purifies those who draw near in faith. This is why John 1:7 says, "The blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us." Present tense, continuous action.

[01:28:06]PSA, by contrast, tends to reduce Jesus's blood to a historical transaction with legal effects. A payment made, a penalty absorbed, and a debt paid. This is impoverished compared to the New Testament picture and it misses the entire active priestly intercessory dimension of what Jesus is doing right now on our behalf.

[01:28:29]Let's see.

[01:28:32]Tony says, uh, PSA makes Yahweh an unrighteous judge. It goes directly against Deuteronomy 24:16 and Exodus 18:19-26.

[01:28:43]Yes, it it it does. And uh, welcome, Tony. Uh, I'm glad I saw you earlier uh in the live stream. Again, sorry everybody for the botched up beginning of the stream. That was uh beyond my control. Bunch of technical difficulties, but I hope things have cleared up since then.

[01:29:03]So, yeah. Um uh there is there is no sense of justice uh that would make it okay for a judge to uh condemn a righteous person in the place of guilty people. um even if that righteous person was willing to suffer quote unquote the punishment that was due to the guilty person, that would still be a mishandling of justice uh according to God's own law. Um so, uh yeah, and people can look up those passages, Deuteronomy 24:16, uh Ezekiel 18:19 through through 26, and those should definitely help uh speak for themselves.

[01:29:56]Yeah, thanks for the comment, Tony.

[01:30:05]So, I also want to note the connection between Jesus' priesthood and the concept of representative as opposed to substitutive. PSA insists on a substitutionary model.

[01:30:17]Jesus doing for us what we could not do for ourselves in our place, absorbing a punishment we deserved. But the biblical picture is one of representative identification. Jesus takes up the human vocation, the vocation Israel failed to fulfill. To be a kingdom of priests, mediating God's blessing to the nations and offering up the obedience and worship of all creation to God. He succeeds where Israel failed. He stands as the faithful representative of the whole human family before God and through his obedience and priestly ministry draws all who are united to him in his death and resurrection into his own purification and life. This is not substitution. It is incorporation.

[01:30:59]We don't get the benefits because a transaction was made outside of us. We get the benefits by being drawn into him into his obedience, his life, his death, and his resurrection.

[01:31:12]This is why the New Testament consistently describes salvation not in terms of of forensic status change but in terms of being in Christ, being joined to him, obeying him, walking in his ways. The eternal salvation Jesus brings comes to all who obey him.

[01:31:28]Hebrews 5:9.

[01:31:31]The Tarum rendering of Isaiah 53:5. By our devotion to his words, our transgressions shall be shall be forgiven. Us captures exactly this. The servants's teaching becomes the pathway of purification for those who unite themselves to it.

[01:31:48]So this is priestly representative intercessory framework.

[01:31:54]Jesus is not a punitive substitute who exhausted divine wrath on a cross so that forensically justified sinners could go on sinning without eternal consequence.

[01:32:03]He is the faithful high priest who having been perfected through suffering draws all who follow him into the same obedience, purification and life that he himself embodies. His priesthood is not a transa transaction to be credited to our account. It is a living reality into which we are called to enter.

[01:32:33]So, uh, let's let's wrap this up. Uh, PSA is a theory that has that was developed outside the biblical framework and then read back into it.

[01:32:45]Uh once you commit to starting with kafar, the he the actual Hebrew word uh and following where it leads the entire PSA structure collapses. Atonement is purification, not penal payment. Blood is life, not death. The atonement happens in the holy place, not on a cross. The prepositions mean and hooper do not say what PSA needs them to say.

[01:33:10]Isaiah 53 presents a representative intercessory high priest, not a punitive substitute. The Passover is a ransom redemption, not a substitutionary sacrifice. And Jesus' priesthood is an active ongoing reality of intercession and cleansing life, not a historical transaction.

[01:33:31]So, uh that uh really concludes Let's bring this back up.

[01:33:48]Let's see if this will work now.

[01:33:54]All right. So, what I'm going to do is uh at this point is I'm going to go ahead and um post the link to join me in the studio. Uh and for anybody who wants to come up and and discuss um anything related to what uh I've presented here, um I'd be happy to to host you.

[01:34:26]So, that should be coming on to the chat soon. Yeah, there's the link.

[01:34:44]Uh, let's see.

[01:34:48]H uh, sorry, I missed your your comment here, Lantius. uh if you're still here uh I think denying PSA is tatamount to denying the gospel itself since they are directly parallel par parallel just like denying Jesus is God is to deny the trinity. Um it I I I totally I get what you're saying. I I understand um that it's interesting uh penal substitutionary atonement proponents uh seem to be the only ones who try to link their atonement theory to the gospel itself. Um and I think uh my my initial thought is and again we can talk about it if you are willing to to come up. I um I think there's a reason for that is that penal substitution is the only um theory of atonement uh that actually isn't biblical. And so you have to try to link it to the gospel itself in order to sort of emotionally uh uh um bully people into um accepting it um or maintaining it if they do accept it.

[01:36:03]Um I I just think it's a moralistic uh tactic. It's not something that's germanine to the Bible that that there is there's no uh Jesus himself never talks about his penal substitution at all in any of the gospels. Um it's nowhere in the book of Acts when all the the apostles are gospeling.

[01:36:22]Um it's not mentioned once. So um it's just it's very difficult to maintain that argument uh that that you're making. Um, uh, I I don't envy anybody who tries to argue that they have a very uphill battle to do.

[01:36:43]That's that I'm just being honest with that.

[01:36:59]Tony says, "If the father poured out his wrath on Yeshua, then he did it to himself since he was in Yeshua." That's 1 Corinthians 5:19. Yeah. Reconciling the world to himself.

[01:37:12]Yeah. um that it um especially when you combine uh um the this PSA framework with uh and and try to make it work with Trinity doctrine, it it it uh it gets into all sorts of weird messiness. Um and this is one example.

[01:37:35]um as much uh no matter how hard you try to make the members of the trinity working all together in in one accord with penal substitution. Um you you end up with with with things like this that you have to um then try to work through. Uh there's just uh too many uh there's too many difficulties. you're going to you're either going to end up with um notorianism.

[01:38:08]You're you're dividing Jesus um into two persons um or you're you're going to end up with Jesus didn't actually die.

[01:38:24]So, pick your poison.

[01:38:40]Let's see.

[01:38:51]Just trying to see if anybody uh else is going to be uh is anybody else wants to jump in to the discussion.

[01:39:05]Like I said, the the link to join uh me here in the studio is uh in the chat. Uh feel free to click that um if you want to come on in.

[01:40:46]Let's see.

[01:40:51]Um, let's see. Oh, you uh father daughter, you said uh you mentioned Gentry's work earlier. Where do you go to access his works? Yeah. So, um let let me actually uh great question. Um let me uh pull up uh I can post a link in the chat for you to you you can download actually a PDF um of it. He has it available through um PDF. Uh so let me get that.

[01:41:54]So, uh I just posted a link uh there fatherdaughter uh to the chat uh that takes you to a web page and you can just uh once there you can download PDF uh there and it'll Um it's called the title of uh his um work is the atonement and is Isaiah's fourth servant song and uh let let me know in the let me know if that doesn't if that link doesn't work or it doesn't take you to the right place or whatever.

[01:42:52]Tony says, "Have you noticed how Israel is described in Isaiah 1 4-6 is exactly what the servant suffered in chapter 53 to heal Israel?"

[01:43:06]H um I I might have made that connection before. I'll have to revisit it. Um that's a Yeah, I'm I'm not too familiar with um with that. Let's see. You said Isaiah 1:4-6.

[01:43:35]Alas, oh sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who act corruptly. They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling?

[01:43:50]Your head has a massive wound and your whole heart is afflicted. From the sole of your feet to the top of your head, there is no soundness. Only wounds and welts and festering sores, neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.

[01:44:04]Yeah, that that actually does um interesting. Yeah. Um the Oh, what's interesting is that what's going through my head right now as I read that is a a passage in in the Talmud. Um I man, it's like Sanhedrin.

[01:44:34]Uh man, which one is that?

[01:44:38]I'll have to I'll have to search up again. But uh there's a a discussion among the rabbis about how they will know um how they'll be able to recognize the Messiah when he comes.

[01:44:59]And it describes him in this lowly state.

[01:45:04]um he's sort of in an infirmary or this uh place, a gathering of a bunch of sick people and they're um they're stricken and sick and they have soores on their body. And the Messiah is pictured as one who is covered with soores. Um and his sores have dressings on them. He's they've they've been dressed. But uh there's this curious discussion about whether uh he removes the dressings all at once or one at a time. And I I forget the exact context of that discussion, but um one of the rabbis uh uh concludes um actually he he removes his dressings uh from his wounds one at a time. Um, and then it says, "The reason being is because he has to be ready at a moment's notice for the redemption of Israel."

[01:46:02]And I don't claim to fully understand what's going on there. Um, but that that discussion always struck stuck out to me. Um, and this passage about uh in Isaiah 1 sort of it really brought to mind because it's discussing the people covered from head to toe uh with with soores. Um, and what it brings to mind is the idea that the that the Messiah comes into the situation as one who is suffering along with Israel. Um and yet um when he provides redemption, it's it brings healing to himself and he's able to heal Israel. Um um sort of show Israel the way to to healing is sort of what I get from that.

[01:46:55]Uh and um there's something profound going on there. Uh because Isaiah 53, it it is about Israel. It's about her Messiah. But um but Israel has always been bound up in the vocation and the identity of Messiah. Uh the Messiah is Israel and Israel is in some sense the um the u prototype for Messiah because they're meant to be a light to the world.

[01:47:28]Messiah is the light of the world. Um and he calls those who follow him to be a light of the world. Um and Israel had become inshed in the problem that they were meant to redeem uh the nations out of. They they rebelled and they became also part of the problem. Uh they didn't listen to God's instruction. That's Isaiah 26.

[01:47:52]This says that when we are under um God's discipline, uh we didn't heed it.

[01:48:00]uh we tried to give birth but it it came in other words we tried to bear fruit for life for the nations but all we could bear fruit was wind um and so the nations could not come to life because uh Israel was not fulfilling its vocation its calling um but then one comes and does fulfill it um in order to sort of reboot everything and uh as the faithful Israelite and So Israel could then follow in the footsteps of Messiah, unite themselves to him and obey his instructions and walk return to the Lord and walk in the in the way of the Lord. Uh so yeah, um I hope that makes sense of this. Um there's a lot there. There's a lot of deepness there to to be um mind Again, if you're just tuning in uh or have been here for a while, uh again, I invite you to uh click the link that I provided in the chat uh to come on and join me in the studio and we could have a discussion.

[01:50:07]Let me make sure that link is pinned.

[01:50:13]There we go.

[01:50:52]All right. So, um I've if nobody else is going to uh comment or have a have a question.

[01:51:04]Um, I'm going to go ahead and wrap things up here. Uh, again, uh, with Isaiah 53, which was the the bulk of what we spent the time here this evening on. Um, I hope you have an opportunity, uh, go back and see part one. Uh, some of what I covered in terms of, uh, the verb da crushed. Uh, I cover that also in a couple other episodes. Um, if you look up uh on my channel uh refining exoggetics episodes 7 and 10, those are part one and part two uh titled uh the Lord, it was Lord's will to crush PSA.

[01:51:47]Um uh provocative title, I know. Yeah. Uh but I I cover that verb da uh crushed in detail and and also address some push back that I received. uh on my my treatment of that verb. Uh so again, episodes seven and 10, I I'll put those down in the in the description uh after I'm done here. Um they cover that.

[01:52:18]Um I have a lot of material on um atonement and a bit on Isaiah 53 that I cover in bits and pieces. Uh so definitely check those episodes out. Uh again what I've been doing I have not found any uh substantial treatment of the actual Hebrew text uh in um verses 5 and 10 particularly uh it it seems like every commentator focuses a lot on everything before and after that.

[01:52:54]when it gets to the prepositions in verse five and 8 and and such, uh, it seems like no one pays any attention to any of that.

[01:53:09]Uh, they just gloss over the prepositions and they just grant the English rendering. And again, what what I do that I haven't seen anybody else do, and I'm not uh um th this really is I really do want to encourage my fellow uh brothers and sisters who do not hold the penal substitution. Uh, I want to encourage you that in your treatment of passages like Isaiah 53, don't just take the English renderings for granted and then try to say, "Well, let's try to read this in a non-PSA way." My exhortation is no, go deeper than that.

[01:53:49]Go act go to the actual language, learn how to study and read these these words.

[01:53:56]Um, these prepositions mean things. They have usage. they have spatial relations and your English translations do not reflect that. Um, and so, uh, I hope that you will take that for what it is is my encouragement to you to refine your exegetical approach, um, and to dig deeper into the text.

[01:54:21]Um, so I I hope I I hope this helps people um to to be able to use those tools to to search at that deeper level.

[01:54:43]Father says, "Thanks for your heart and sharing a different perspective. you set a good example of how to present ideas others may not agree with. I appreciate that. Yeah, thanks for that. Um, yeah. Um, appreciate the comment there and encouragement.

[01:54:59]Thank you for tuning in and uh and staying through all the technical difficulties.

[01:55:12]All right. Um, just a quick announcement. Um, as much as I've spent on Isaiah 53 here, um, we have up I have upcoming on this channel a great mega stream. I'm going to call it a mega stream on Isaiah 53.

[01:55:29]Uh, where myself and my good friend Spencer Owen from the trauma-informed church kid podcast.

[01:55:36]um uh he and I have spent a considerable amount of years uh trying to understand Isaiah 53 um and glean as much data as we can on how to read it, how to interpret it. Um he's done a lot of work on it. Um you might be able to find some of his work on uh by going to uh his YouTube channel, the again trauma informed church kid and I'll put a link in the description for that. But on June 7th, yes, uh yes, uh Sunday, June 7th, um we're going to be doing a a live stream, he and I, together, and we are going to be bringing the greatest lineup of witnesses uh about Isaiah 53, um that probably anybody has ever done.

[01:56:27]I mean, it's going to be pretty exhaustive. Um and we're going to have a good time. And so, I hope you can join me for that. Again, that's going to be June 7th. and uh look for the the announcement of that on my channel and for the the live stream to to be posted so that you could uh get that notification.

[01:56:45]If you've liked this uh this live stream, please give it a like. Um leave a comment uh and um if you definitely interested in more content in regards to atonement, uh um just subscribe to my channel. I'm always uh uh this is an ongoing thing uh that I speak a lot on that I present a lot on and like to have conversations with people about. So um with that said, bless you all tonight.

[01:57:12]Uh have a wonderful rest of the weekend and happy Memorial Day uh to you. Um and uh may the Lord bless you and keep you.

[01:57:23]Thank you for joining me tonight.

[01:57:26]Good night.

[01:57:31]Hey folks, if you enjoyed this episode and the content, please like the video and leave a comment below. And definitely subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you can be sure to catch more content like this as it comes. Until next time, think deep.

[01:57:57]Heat up here.