Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland continues the Lenten journey through Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion, focusing on substitution. While Rutledge explores eight major biblical images of the atonement, substitution receives the most pages and perhaps the most theological weight.
Rutledge has suggested that all the biblical metaphors of atonement can be gathered under two headings: Christus Victor and substitution. Substitution means that Jesus died for us and in our place. Drawing from Galatians 3:13 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, the episode explores how substitution functions as a participatory exchange. Jesus becomes the curse so we might be freed from it. Jesus becomes sin so we might embody the righteousness of God. The emphasis is not transactional but transformational.
Romans 8:3 becomes a key text: God “condemned sin in the flesh.” The Father is condemning Sin. He is not condemning the Son. The cross is the place where sin is judged and destroyed. Jesus dies as fully human because humanity is responsible for sin, and fully divine because only God can defeat death.
To rethink substitution faithfully, Rutledge turns to Karl Barth. In Church Dogmatics IV and Dogmatics in Outline, Barth describes reconciliation as God putting himself in humanity’s place so that humanity might be put in God’s place. This vision echoes Athanasius of Alexandria: “God became man that man might become God.” Substitution, rightly understood, is relational, Trinitarian, incarnational, and resurrection-shaped.
The episode concludes by affirming substitution as a biblical metaphor—but not the only one. The cross must be held together with incarnation, resurrection, and ascension. God does not turn away from humanity; even in judgment, God’s opposition to evil is the expression of divine love.
Russell Moore’s interview with Flemming Rutledge is here: https://www.russellmoore.com/2023/03/29/fleming-rutledge-on-the-cross/
Books Mentioned
The Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge
Stricken by God? edited by Brad Jersak & Michael Hardin
A More Christlike God by Brad Jersak
Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross by Hans Boersma
Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth
Scriptures Mentioned
Acts 3:15
Galatians 3:13
2 Corinthians 5:21
Romans 3:24–25
Romans 5:12–21
Romans 8:3
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Transcript
Welcome back.
To another episode of Peaceable and Kind during the season of Lent.
I am your host, Derek Vreeland, and thank you for joining me for this episode.
I am so much looking forward to jumping.
Into the content of this episode because during the season of Lent we are walking through Fleming Rutledge’s important book.
on the crucifixion.
But before we jump into Rutledge’s book, let me invite you to leave a rating, a review, subscribe, recommend all the things.
Alright, you know what to do.
I’m here to lead you through this book.
And I’ve said in previous episodes that Fleming Rutledge’s book
The crucifixion, understanding the death of Jesus Christ, is perhaps one of the most important things.
Theological books on atonement, on the meaning of the death of Jesus that’s been written in the last 20, 30 years.
It’s been that influential in my own life.
Now, it is 600 pages, and so my assumption is most people aren’t going to take the time to read Rutledge, but I’ve read it.
And now I’m rereading it in order to create these podcast episodes.
But I will give you a warning at the beginning of this episode.
that we’re going into some pretty deep theological weeds.
And I don’t want that to scare you off, but I want you to be prepared.
that in these episodes and in this one in particular, you’re not going to find a whole lot of practical application.
What we’re trying to do is during the season of Lent, we want to reflect deeply on the death of Jesus.
That in part is what the season of Lent is all about.
Because crucifixion and resurrection at the heart of the gospel is a model for our own spiritual lives.
In other words, the Christian life is not all resurrection.
It’s not all chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter egg hunts and
wonderfully blown out, explosively joyful worship services.
That the Christian life has those highs and those seasons of joy is a wonderful thing.
But to be honest, there’s also desert experiences, valley experiences in the Christian life, where we don’t feel that sense of elation.
And so on this episode, as we look at just one chapter in Rutledge’s book, it is going to challenge you
To think deeply with me.
But I’m your guide.
I’m here to help you understand some of the theological and biblical nuances
And so this might be an episode that you may want to have something to jot things down on.
You may have questions.
And if you do, you can always reach out to me.
Email, social media.
I’m out there.
Find me.
Go to the show notes and all the links to all my socials are there.
If you have questions, reach out to me because I want to help you.
But this will be an episode where together we are loving God with all of our mind.
Remember when Jesus was asked, What’s the greatest commandment in the law?
He started with the Jewish Shema, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one.
And you shall worship the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, with all of your mind.
And so in a theological exercise, like we’re about ready to walk through, is an opportunity for you to think God’s thoughts after him.
And to grow in your ability to think deeply.
And I believe in you.
I believe you have a greater capacity for understanding than you have even assumed.
So let’s jump in.
Today we’re looking at one chapter in Rutledge’s book, the chapter on the biblical metaphor and motif of substitution
And Rutledge spends more pages, more time on this image of the death of Jesus than any of the others.
Now again, she talks about eight images or eight metaphors, eight motifs in the scriptures
that are used to describe the meaning of the death of Jesus.
And the Passover section, she only really devotes about 18 pages
Blood sacrifice, which is an important one.
52 pages.
The ransom redemption metaphor.
Only 19 pages.
Judgment.
That’s the great assize, the law court metaphor, 45 pages, and we did all four of those in one episode, which is probably too much.
That’s why I’ve tried to break out the other ones a little bit
Then there was uh Christus Victor.
We talked about both Christus Victor and the descent of hell in last week’s episode, episode 93.
The Christus Victor image.
Is Jesus triumphing over sin and death and the devil?
She devotes forty-seven pages to that metaphor
and the descent into hell, which includes a discussion of the nature of evil, 67 pages, which is a lot.
But.
In today’s episode in looking at substitution, she devotes 74 pages.
Now, next week we will wrap up in looking at the image of recapitulation, which is a very technical theological term.
I’m going to define that next episode.
But she only devotes 35 pages to that.
So at 75 pages, she spends more time talking about the image of substitution more than any other
And I think it’s helpful.
In her interview with Russell Moore a few years ago, and I’ll put the link in the show notes to that.
Uh Russell Moore had Fleming Rutledge on his podcast, and it was a great conversation.
But in that conversation, Rutledge says that
There are these eight metaphors, but you can really put them in two categories or under two subheadings, and one is Christus Victor.
and other is substitution.
And I do agree because I’ve seen other biblical scholars do something similar
The two primary images in the Bible for the meaning of the death of Jesus, for atonement, is this victory language and this substitutionary language.
So it’s important.
So let’s define the term.
For Rutledge, and I think for other biblical scholars, by substitution, she means that Jesus died for us and in our place.
And I believe that substitution, sometimes called substitutionary atonement, is helpful and theologically sound
And she’s clear that this biblical image, which is indeed one that we find in the New Testament, does not necessarily have to be connected to the idea of Jesus being punished in our place.
Or the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus in our place.
So it’s helpful to understand that nuance
that substitution as a biblical image, and then the atonement theory, substitutionary atonement
is somewhat distinct from penal substitutionary atonement.
Now, if you want to go down a deep rabbit hole, you can just Google penal substitutionary atonement.
And you can read and listen as long as you want to, because this has been hotly debated, particularly among evangelical scholars, for I don’t know how long, at least for the last 50 years
But Rutledge is clear, and I believe she’s correct, that there are key distinctions between punishment language, which really belongs
To the judgment law court imagery and substitutionary language and imagery.
Again, for her substitution is simply that Jesus died for us.
and in our place.
Now, I argue, along with N.T. Wright and others, that there is punishment language and punishment metaphors and imagery
around the death of Jesus in the scriptures.
So I don’t deny the penal or punishment judgment aspects of the atonement
It’s just, it’s not God doing the punishing.
Uh, it’s it’s humanity doing the punishing.
I mean, there is punishment.
I mean, Jesus is being punished
at the cross, but it’s not God the Father punishing the Son.
It’s the Roman Empire punishing Jesus.
And in fact, when the gospel’s being preached in the book of Acts, this is exactly what is said.
You killed the author of life, preached Peter in Acts 3.
You killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead.
So just as a example in the book of Acts, when the Apostle Peter is preaching the gospel, he’s very clear that you, not the Jews, but you, humanity
You are the ones who killed and executed and crucified Jesus.
God is the one who raised him from the dead.
So from the very beginning of the preaching of the gospel, it was clear the punishing was done by humanity.
the vindication and the resurrection of Jesus that was done by God.
So I fully reject any form of penal substitution
which creates a mechanism out of the atonement whereby Jesus’ death turns God towards us or satisfies God’s demand and desire to punish for sin.
And Rutledge is also rejecting that view of penal substitution or punishment substitution
Brad Jerzak and Michael Harden edited a helpful collection of essays, by the way, Stricken by God question mark.
I highly recommend you check that book out.
By the way, Rutledge does offer a brief critique of Brad’s argument.
She does this in a footnote in The Crucifixion.
And she calls Brad’s critique um unsubtle and formulaic.
And I don’t
uh see things exactly the way Brad does, but I think her critique was a little bit of an overreach.
And again, this is just in a very, very brief
Uh footnote.
What I would recommend to Rutledge and you if you’re interested is brands much more nuanced.
and and and biblically broad and and I would say less formulaic treatment on this subject in his book A More Christ like God, in particular the section on the unwrathing of God.
Brad Jorzak’s book, A More Christ Like God, had deep, deep impact on me, just as one studying the scripture and trying to understand atonement.
That book has been very, very helpful.
So I recommend Brad Jerzak’s A More Christ-like God.
But for me personally, I really want to be clear.
that I believe in substitutionary atonement.
I just don’t believe in the popular version
of penal substitutionary atonement, or the popular version of satisfaction theory that God pours out wrath on Jesus instead of pouring out wrath on us.
I don’t think that’s what the scriptures mean by substitution.
Okay.
Let’s get back to Rutledge.
At the heart of this imagery of substitution for Rutledge is not only that Jesus died on our behalf,
the purpose of atonement found in other metaphors, but that Jesus died in our place.
And this is a phrase that is debated among scholars, but Rutledge wants to emphasize that.
That substitution is not Jesus dying simply for us, but in our place.
And so she goes on to describe that there are two Greek prepositions, couper and peri.
And they’re they’re both translated in in a normal sense as the word for, but they can also mean different things in different places.
And she says that at times these Greek words do imply
an exchange.
That is, these Greek words can mean this for that.
And she gives a number of examples.
I would say where I see it clearly is in Galatians 3.
where Paul writes, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree.
So you do see a little bit of that exchange nature of these Greek words because
In Galatians 3.
13, Jesus became the curse, the curse of the law, which is death, by the way, if you want to know, the curse of the law is death.
So that we can be freed from the curse.
That is, we are freed from death
So there is a little bit of in our place.
In our place, Jesus took the curse of the law at death.
So that in one sense we don’t have to experience the curse of death.
The other place you see this is in 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
Where Paul writes, For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
And here we’re seeing a this for that.
Jesus embodied our sin.
He took our sin into his flesh
so that we could embody the righteousness of God, so that we could live lives consistent with God’s righteousness, with God’s right way of living.
So while the Christus Victor metaphor is dominant throughout the book of Romans,
Particularly Romans 5, 12 through 21.
When we look at Romans, we can also see blood sacrifice.
That image shows up in Romans chapter 3, as well as other metaphors.
But Rutledge asks in reflection to the Adam Christ contrast, the first Adam, the second Adam.
This appears in Romans chapter 5.
She asks, Does it not follow that by reenacting Adam, Christ put himself in Adam’s place?
So in the description of Jesus as the second Adam, is this an example of substitutionary language?
To which I would say, sorta, uh, but for me, this is not so much substitution as recapitulation that we’ll talk about on the next episode
For me, I like to look at Romans 8.
3 if we’re going to clearly see substitutionary language in Romans.
Let’s look at it in Romans chapter 8, because in verse 3, that’s where I do see punishment imagery connected to substitution.
Romans 8.
3 says that God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son of God.
So it’s not so much that God is punishing sin, God is condemning sin.
So this is some of that judgment law court imagery
But it can also be viewed in the same category as punishment, because punishment or sentencing belongs to that law court metaphor
But if you carefully look at Romans 8.
3, it does not say that God was condemning his son, or that God was punishing his son.
It says that God was condemning sin in the flesh of the Son of God
So again, the problem for which the death of Jesus is the solution is not God’s need for punishment.
The problem is sin and death.
And because sin is the problem, sin gets the gavel.
Sin is forever condemned
So again, it does not say that the son was condemned or that the son was punished, but rather sin was being punished
Hey friends, I want to pause this episode for just a moment to let you know that Resurrection, eight lessons on how God restores us, the third and final book in the God in the Neighborhood Bible.
study series is out now.
Go to the show notes for ordering information.
So when Rutledge is reflecting on Romans 8:3, she asks: If the flesh of the Son of God is the place where sin is condemned, and it is the place.
Was it a substitute for our flesh?
In other words, is the flesh of Jesus a substitute for our flesh
Now this question grounds atonement in the incarnation, that Jesus came in the very likeness of human flesh, so that God could condemn sin.
Jesus died as a human being because we, humanity, were responsible for sin, not God.
It was our sin that was the problem.
Moreover, Jesus died as God because only God could defeat death.
We were powerless to do so.
And so is this a substitution?
Well, perhaps, but I think that there’s better language.
And I picked this up from Hans Borsma.
In his book, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross.
In that book, Borzma argues that hospitality is a very helpful metaphor in understanding atonement.
That God opens up God’s very self to humanity to welcome strangers in.
But in that book, Borzma says that the word representative
Might be a better term than substitute.
That Jesus is dying on the cross as our human representative
To do for us in our place what we were unable to do.
Borsmar argues that sin carried with it the condemnation of death
And Jesus bore, took on sin and death in our place
So Rutledge goes on to say Paul has been called to witness for an elaborately worked out doctrine of penal substitution.
when in fact it can be found nowhere in his thought.
So that’s a pretty strong statement.
I would again argue, along with N.
T.
Wright,
that Romans eight three is using at least law court, if not punishment, language.
But Rutledge argues that penal substitution is not found in Galatians three.
It’s not found in Second Corinthians
521 is not found in Romans 3, Romans 5.
Again, I argue that it is found in Romans 8.
But she would say that substitution is an important metaphor, but we need to untangle it
from some of its popular iterations.
In other words, we need to go back and read Paul
And read the gospel writers uh in their original context, setting aside all of these atonement theories
And making sure we’re we’re careful to understand Scripture within its historical context
From here, she goes on to look at the metaphor of substitution in church history.
And while substitution wasn’t the dominant metaphor,
used by either Eastern Greek fathers or Western Latin fathers.
It does appear there is substitutionary language used by the early church fathers.
I really appreciated the quote
that she shared from the second century Melito of Sardis.
I enjoyed this quote so much that I went out and bought the book just to have it in my library.
So Melito of Sardis combines at least five different metaphors in the second century in one of his Easter sermons.
And here’s what Rutledge quotes.
This is from the second century church bishop Melito of Sardis.
He preached
The Lord suffered for the sake of him who suffered, and was bound for the sake of him who was imprisoned, and was judged for the sake of the condemned, and was buried for the sake of the buried.
So come all families of human beings who are defiled by sins and receive remission of sins
For I am your remission.
I am the Passover of salvation.
I am the lamb sacrificed for your sake
I am your ransom.
I am your life.
I am your resurrection.
I am your light.
I am your salvation.
I am your king.
I lead you towards the heights of heaven.
I will show you the eternal father.
I will raise you up with my right hand.
Of course, there in the sermon, Melito of Sardis is rhetorically speaking on Jesus’ behalf
Who suffered for the sake, I like that language, for the sake of those imprisoned, condemned, buried.
And Jesus is our Passover lamb, our ransom.
So you see all sorts of different metaphors in there.
including substitutionary language.
And Rutledge wants to move on to talk a little bit about Carl Bart
And she notes here that Carl Bart found this testimony of Melito compelling evidence that, quote, the judge judged in our place.
this motif was present as early as the second century.
So if we go back to the church fathers, we we do see substitutionary language
But Rutledge again implores us that when we are reading not only the early church fathers
But we’re reading church history as well as the scripture that we read the word wrath of God or anger of God metaphorically.
I’ve mentioned this in previous episodes.
This has been an important understanding for me that God does not have literal anger, that wrath is a metaphor for God’s judgment.
Rutledge writes in the crucifixion, quote, it is essential to read the wrath of God as symbolic language
It is a figurative way of expressing the eternal opposition of God to all that would hurt and destroy his good creation.
She then goes through the various problems with the popular forms.
of penal substitution.
She has this long list that really for this podcast episode, I don’t I don’t really want to get into, except I do want to say that
A transactional view of the cross that just makes the atonement a mechanism.
Like Jesus did these this thing to get us off the hook
is in Rutledge’s word crude, but I would say it’s too simplistic and it’s too final.
Some people say, well, yeah, Jesus died on the cross to forgive me of my sins.
That’s it.
Let’s just move along.
And the cross reveals so much more.
about the nature of God, about the nature of the kingdom of God, about the kinds of people we can become.
The cross is much more multifaced than just a simple mechanism.
So I encourage you to continue pursuing what is a great mystery
uh this this mystery of God becoming human, taking our place so that we can come into beautiful union and harmony with God.
And that great idea we find in uh Carl Bart.
And I had not spent a lot of time reading Bart.
I mean, I’ve read read sections
of his church dogmatics, but I hadn’t given Carl Bart really enough attention until Rutledge starts quoting from him.
Because she argues that modern Protestants and certainly evangelicals need to rethink
the substitution motif, not eliminate it, but rethink it.
So she draws upon Bart to help us to rethink substitution
And she points us towards volume four of Bart’s Church Dogmatics, where he has a lengthy section.
on the death of Jesus entitled The Judge Judged in Our Place.
And I quoted from that when she’s quoting Melito of Sardis, she references Bart
And this idea of the judge judged in our place.
And I I agree with Rutledge before we get to Bart.
That substitution is a biblical metaphor, but for some Christians, it’s just the only one.
And so we need to do more work.
We need to expand
our biblical imagination to see the other metaphors being used throughout Scripture to talk about the death of Jesus
But back to her section on Bart.
She had one quote from Bart that I found absolutely compelling.
It was one of those moments where I read this line and I just had to stop for a second.
And I ended up writing it out and reflecting on it.
But here’s what Carl Barth says, and this again has to do with the substitution metaphor.
So Karl Barth writes,
Man’s reconciliation with God takes place through God putting himself in man’s place and man being put in God’s place as a sheer act of grace.
It is the inconceivable miracle which is our reconciliation.
Now, this is a different way of thinking about substitution.
God took humanity’s place, sinful humanity’s place, so that humanity could be put in God’s place
I’m thinking about in Ephesians where it says we have been seated with Christ.
Where?
In heavenly places.
Heaven, that’s God’s place.
So the miracle and mystery of the death of Jesus, which becomes for us reconciliation.
is this God in our place?
When I read that, I instantly heard echoes of Athanasius
Who in his book On the Incarnation very famously said God became man that man might become God.
And bringing in incarnational ideas into atonement, particularly substitution images of atonement, to me is is absolutely brilliant.
After I sat with that quote for a while, I wrote in the margin of uh of my copy of Rutledge’s uh crucifixion, I wrote, Carl.
freaking Bart.
So in reading this and reflecting on it, I actually went to my library and grabbed my copy of Dogmatics in Outline, which is a very
uh small, slender little volume where Bart does some summation work.
The Church Dogmatics is a multi-volume
very intimidating uh set of books that I’ve spent little time in.
But uh Bart’s little slender dogmatics and outline was helpful.
So I I went to read this quote in context, right?
This God takes place
uh with man’s reconciliation with god takes place through god putting himself in man’s place.
I wanted to read it in in context
And the whole phrase, man in God’s place, this quote is not so much about going to heaven upon death
But it is an image of humanity being raised in Christ to the right hand of God the Father
So Bart describes this as substitution, but it is much more relational than it is moral or legal.
So, substitution we think about in terms of relationship.
God came and joined humanity
uh relationally and at the cross took our place.
The judge was being judged and punished, again not by God, but by humanity
So that we could have right relationship with God, that we could have union with God through Jesus.
And I find that relational piece so helpful.
When atonement is just a mechanism, something God does to get us off the hook.
You lose the relational piece.
And I think to do that is to miss the the big overarching theme
of Scripture itself.
Because if you trace the the story narrative arc from Genesis to Revelation, from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem.
From Genesis to Revelation 21, what you see over and over is this very relational, personal God
who wants to be close to, in proximity, and in relationship with humanity whom God created.
So in Genesis, you see God uh walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden, and then in Revelation 21.
You see the picture of the new Jerusalem coming from heaven, God’s place, to earth, humanity’s place, and there God dwells with God’s people forever
The hope that we have in and through Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection is the hope
That we will dwell with God completely unhindered, unhindered by our sin, unpolluted by our sin.
To be in God’s presence, or to be in God’s place, is not simply to be morally good like God, but to be in a right relationship with God.
And so I think Bart helps us to make atonement, particularly the substitution image.
to be very relatable because it is about our relationship with God.
So
Rutledge spends 75 pages, and I spend, whatever this episode’s been, 30 minutes to tell you that Jesus
Dying in our place on our behalf is about our relationship with God, to which you’re thinking, yeah, I knew that.
But in order to get there, I think we had to do all of this other work.
And I absolutely loved this chapter in Rutledge ending up with Carl Bart and the relational aspects of substitution.
Well, of course, Rutledge has much, much more to say.
But with that, with the Karl Barth section, I’m going to conclude our review of Rutledge’s chapter on substitution.
And bring this podcast to a close.
I know we talked about some heady things, but I do hope that as you are pursuing to understand
who this crucified Jesus is, that things like this help you grow in your knowledge, in your imagination, and most importantly, in your love and heart and desire.
to follow in the footsteps of King Jesus.
Thank you for joining me for this episode.
That’s all I got for you today.
Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.