Episode 282 - Andrew Rillera

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Okay, Andrew, we are this. I don't even know. I don't even know where to start, because we've started already. I should probably start with an apology to the listener because y'all aren't going to get this, like, half hour of this fantastic conversation that we've already had. I should have pressed record. That's my bad. But here we are. Andrew Remington, RA this book, Lamb of the Free, recovering the varied sacrificial understandings of Jesus's death. Okay, I'm going to take a deep breath and say that's a mouth feel. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Full of us of a title, huh? [00:01:21] Speaker A: It is. And I won't even take us to the thing of, like, I. I also have a first name that ends with S. And so it caught me off guard every time with Jesus's. So, like the editorial. [00:01:31] Speaker B: That's SBL style. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Sorry. Instead of doing that. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, so it was Jesus's every time, and I'm fine with it. And I got used to it. So, number one, thanks for coming on. And number two, number two, I should say that this book was recommended to me by our mutual friend, Dr. Colin Cornell, who has been on the podcast a couple of times. He is also a biblical scholar. He focuses on Old Testament. He read this book and told me that this was an excellent treatment of the Old Testament sacrificial system. So that definitely piqued my interest. But I will tell you, the reason that I read this is because Colin told me that it dealt with penal substitutionary atonement, which we'll talk about in this podcast and has been something that I have been thinking about a lot for before I even had a terminology for what that was. I would say it has. Can I say that it has bothered me. And that will be maybe the mildest thing I'll say on that. And then we'll. And then we'll continue. So. Yeah. So thanks for coming on. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Oh, thank you for inviting me. I'm really excited to. To keep our conversation going. Yeah. So we had a lot of preamble to ourselves, but. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. I can. I Start this portion of the conversation by just my, like, this is my kind of lay understanding of how I maybe, how. Maybe it's better to say how I have experienced this concept of public or a penal substitutionary atonement theory, because I'm going to say that, and some people are going to say I have no idea what they're talking about already. But when I say it, everyone listening will know exactly what I'm talking about. Not because I'm great at explaining things, but because this is what's preached from many, many, many, probably most evangelical pulpits in the United States every single week. So this is. And you can correct me whatever you feel like you need to correct. So this is what I was brought up understanding, that we're all sinners. Some of these things are true. We are all sinners. We're all sinners. And basically God's wrath could not sustain the sin that was present in our lives and in the world. And so instead of God taking his wrath out on humanity, on people, that essentially he took his wrath out on Jesus and Jesus died or Jesus was killed is really sometimes explicitly, even how I have heard it preached, that Jesus died or Jesus was killed by God. And this is where that, as a substitute, as a it for my punishment. So instead of God coming after me or killing me because my sin is deserving of death, Jesus. And this is where it kind of gets, you know, some of the language, he was killed or he willingly laid down his life as a substitute for my death, so he was punished instead of me. As I'm saying that, I am in the back of my head singing songs that I sang at youth camp about God, Jesus taking my, paying my debt, things like this. So this is, this is all related. There's a judicial kind of system at play here. There is a, a penal substitute, a penal system at play here. And all of these things are related. And it is, you know, goodness. Even the idea of there being a judge was, was this analogy was utilized in settings where I was brought up, you know, that I deserve the punishment. I'm standing there as the defendant. The judge bangs the gavel. It should be me who's going to the death penalty. And instead Jesus walks in and takes my place in many of those discussions. God is actually the one as the judge with the, with the gavel. Tell me how I butchered that and tell me how, you know, much you've experienced that as being, as being true or anything in between. [00:06:16] Speaker B: I, that sounds, I mean, to me that sounds like, yeah, the forms, the Sermons I've heard, you know, growing up. Well, we'll put aside. I actually grew up Job's witness. So just to be a bit more thorough, but like since junior high and on, I was in nurtured and evangelical context in California. And if these names mean anything to people, you know, John MacArthur and the master seminary and pastors from there were those in that were, that were my pastors and, and youth pastors and all that stuff. And you know, also John Piper and self influence and that. Yeah, that's like, that's. That's what it is. That's what, that's how salvation is presented. That's how the gospel is presented. This is how God's relation to humanity is. Is seen and God's relation to sinners and sin. And you know, there's. In the beginning of, of Lamb of the Free, I, you know, quote from people that hold these kinds of, these kinds of views and especially link them to notions of sacrifice that I'm trying to like on, on show that it's just not that you can't, you can't, you can't. I don't. Well, I argue. So if you want the receipts, you got to read the book. But I. You can't anchor penal substitutionary atonement in Israel's sacrificial system because it fundamentally doesn't do what penal substitutionary atonement needs it to do for the. To sustain their theology. It's, it's in a. It's a different. It's a whole different thing. And so. But they do. But people who hold penal substitutionary atonement, this idea, you know, like you said, satisfying God's wrath of Jesus, Jesus's experience on the cross as him experiencing the wrath of God towards humanity instead of or in place of you is. And that this is what the sacrifices are all about. And just now it's a, it's a human that. That does it perfectly or something like that. Yeah, that is the view I encountered that is in a lot of songs as well. It's reinforced in a lot of worship. And the more I was just observing the biblical texts and things, I, the more I, I not only was just uncomfortable with the presentation of God there and the kind of. In inherent tensions between the Son and the Father and what that does in theologies of the Trinity and all that sort of stuff like there's, there's all kinds of angles you can get at this is what I'm trying to say. And my particular angle in, in Lamb of the Free is from a You know, biblical studies, exegetical perspective on, on just what sacrifice is. And then certain key texts in the New Testament about what is, how is the saving significance of Jesus death construed? Because that's, that's how I would put it. We gotta, we can't, we can't. Oh, I'm struggling for a word here, but we, we just. I want to talk about Jesus death in the most kind of vague way at first. I like, leave it, like, obviously the New Testament is proclaiming there's something saving about it. This is where this is the unrepeatable, the saving event. Okay, so there's a saving significance there, but then how is it saving and then realizing that answer. The how and why is varied in the New Testament. There's various depictions of it. And even when authors go to sacrificial metaphors or language of purification, which is related to the sacrificial system, those sacrifices are themselves varied. And so learning to distinguish between the functions and just points of the various purifications and sacrifices then illumine when you're in the New Testament, how a certain author or their paragraphs, because they can weave multiple significances. But what are they doing in this specific text? How are they activating this metaphor in relation to Jesus? And, and that's why, you know, in the subtitles, the varied. Right. There, there's, there's. Yeah, there, there's various things going on. But one of the, I think, you know, if I, if I dare say so myself, readers can come to their own conclusions. But one of the, one of, like, the point of all that is when you, when you, when you, when you have all that on the table, all that data sac. Old Testament sacrificial system, learning to, to see the varied ways New Testament authors talk about Jesus death, I don't know about most. A lot of the time it's not even in a sacrificial register. And that's another mistake. We just conflate everything in the sacrifice. You see death, you see blood or whatever. It's like, oh, it's sacrifice. Probably not. Actually, I have the whole chapter devoted to those, like, texts that people think are about sacrifice, but they're not. But once you put all that on the table, what I think is that I'm sure about now is penal substitutionary atonement is just wrong. Like, of all the varied ways that the New Testament authors talk about Jesus death, it's not that. Well, that's one of them and there's also these others. And we just can't prioritize one or the other. I just don't see penal substitutionary atonement anywhere because it fundamentally misconstrues each one of its terms and then it's put together in a way that's just a cacophony of chaos that I don't think is supported exegetically at all when you actually get down into it. So even like you know, suffering servant, you know, I have a, have a bit on that when we talk, when I talk about first Peter. But like it says right in there, we thought God was striking him. And that's in the text saying. And that was a mistake. That was wrong. This is not God. Like this is what we thought. We thought that this was God smiting him. Well, that's what penal substitutionary requires. And, and that's it. And it's not. Then they do all this. Well, it really wasn't him doing that because it was actually toward us and he was just in your place like, oh my goodness, like how much. I mean we just go on like I said with, with other texts. But yeah, so I like, I want to, I want to. I don't know if that makes sense. Sorry, let me, let me try to typo on that. So that the point that what I was trying to say there is clear or at least at the end there, because I kind of forgot what I was saying in the beginning. There are varied understandings of the saving significance of Jesus death. We cannot preempt what that is. And I don't think it's appropriate to even find an overarching so called atonement theory. You're just not, it's going to force you to do weird things with the specifics in that variation. So this is still on point 1, but sub points in that variation. Sometimes authors talk about Jesus death, the saving significance and sacrificial registers and sometimes they don't and it's a mistake to conflate them. Other sub point when it is sacrificial, that itself is also varied. So we have to attend to those specifics if we want to actually hear what these authors are saying. That second point was within all that variation though I think we can, I think we can exclude penal substitutionary atonement as one of those variations. I just don't think it. Anytime there's, there's, oh, it's anchored here in this text and that's what it goes through to, to go through in the book. It just falls apart. And so you're left with, you're, you're left with A, you know, just a free floating theological system that gets slapped onto various texts and stuff. And then as I say in the intro, so now I guess I'm, I'm starting to talk too much. But like there, there's, it's not just about getting it right or wrong in a historical sense or an exegetical sense. It's theologies nourish, I think fundamentally anti gospel views of justice. So the book itself isn't like on that in its content as we go through like percentage wise, but it's. Why is the subject important? It's important because of what's been done in light of this whole framework of what justice is and what God's justice demands, so to speak, and all that and how that's formed, know our criminal justice system in the west and, and all that. So that's why I framed it that way in the intro. Like it has massive implications. It's not just like, hey, we've, you know, let's get these details right. Because, because, because why not? These, these have like, it's, it's, these aren't just potential harms there, there's real harms that have happened and are happening and will still happen in the name of being loyal to this notion of justice and, and who God is. That is based on several interlocking misunderstandings. And I think that's something that we need to correct. And the we there is people with both an interest, curiosity and training to intervene in those kinds of conversations for the sake of the people of God and the world. And so yeah, I'll stop myself there. I don't know how that even started. Oh, you were asking if you accurately summarize penal substitutionary atonement. Yes, you did. And I think there's problems with it. [00:15:39] Speaker A: I think there's huge problems with it. But I'm grateful for you lining out for us what the book is. First, I want to reiterate what you said. And I don't often do this for folks who might listen semi regularly. I don't often like, oh, there's a, there's a quote on this page or whatever, like super specific like that. I found myself as a theology student coming to this more like that. My, my, my annotations were, were more detailed. My thoughts were. I found myself, you know, following these threads and so there will be places in this conversation where I'll be like, okay, Andrew, on this page or you know, in this, in this, in this, in this chapter you said this or that because, and we won't get necessarily super technical in this conversation. But like you said, if people want receipts, they can read the book. But, but you do make a fairly technical argument based on the sacrificial system. And so. Yeah, so I just want to kind of throw that out there. The other thing I want to say is you said it already, but in the book specifically, there's a quote that I wrote down that is kind of my guiding quote for our conversation, which is Jesus's death is soteriologically unique. And so I think as we're both going into this as believers, as theologians, we're, we're coming into this and just as, just as people, right, who, if we've placed our faith in Jesus and we say we are like, affirming Jesus's death is so teologically unique. I don't think either one of us are arguing that we can pinpoint exactly how in this conversation. But, but it is. And the, the thing that was also helpful that I want to restate that, that you mentioned, is that penal substitutionary atonement, many people have experienced it, no doubt in similar ways to how I described it. I know this in part because my youth group growing up had, or my youth camp had like 3,000 kids a week. You know, so I know that there are some folks out there who have experienced experience is similar to me, even if they're just in Oklahoma. But there are all sorts, as you mentioned, there are all sorts of kind of angles at which you could, a person could come about this or ways in which this feels, you know, might feel uncomfortable. I think you're, you mentioned the, the Trinity relationship. This is one of the big ones for me. You mentioned also, what does justice require? You know, based on that view, how does God respond to injustice? You know, I think is, is, is another one of those places, but one of the places that feels very foundational for me, which is why I'm, I'm glad that you addressed it here is the sacrificial system, because this is what also what it comes back to. I mean, every Good Friday sermon will have a mention to how Jesus was the Passover lamb or how Jesus was this sacrifice. And I think that it is important, as you name. So I'm just kind of restating some of these things to set up our conversation, that it's not that the language isn't there in the New Testament, and it's certainly not that the system or the language isn't there in the Old Testament and the prophets. It definitely is, but we're conflating a Lot of things that ought not be conflated. And we are maybe assigning, not just maybe you argue that we're assigning certain sacrificial characteristics to even other sacrifices. And those things don't line up. And, and so there ends up being a confusion there. So I just want to, I just want to throw that out there as we, as we get started. I think one of the places where I would love to start and this comes in, I think, oh gosh, based on our preamble conversation, we could probably go a lot of places. But we, I don't know, might want to do that here, might want to do it somewhere else. This idea that forgiveness though is not reducible to sacrifice. And this is a point that you bring out. And I will just say, in my experience, I think this has been one of the places that has led to a lot of misunderstandings in Jewish Christian relationships. This has led to some anti Semitic thoughts and things like this because we have Christians, I think us Christians have in their minds, oh, the sacrificial system was. I even hate saying this out loud, but I think you'll know where I'm going. The sacrificial system was how Judaism experienced forgiveness. And then there comes all these questions, well, the temple is gone. There are no sacrifices being, you know, taking place now. And then that further, I think continues with these, these strained already relationships. That says basically then that means Jewish people are essentially damned because there is no way then to make atonement, this forgiveness, you know, and anyway, there's lots of things refuting those ideas. But I also want to say this is one of them. Like this, this for me, this argument that you bring up kind of does double or triple duty in some of those ways because it speaks to, I think, God's character, the systems that God does have in place and also speaks to that idea that this wasn't ever the design in the first place, is that this would be the be all, end all and that forgiveness would somehow be reducible, as you say, to sacrifice. So can you help us out a little bit there? [00:21:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So do you want me to. Let me focus my thoughts a little bit, explain. You explain more about why I'm. That claim forgiveness is not reducible to sacrifice. [00:21:55] Speaker A: And. [00:21:56] Speaker B: Okay, yes. So, all right, let me try to do this in a, in a not convoluted way so that is. Can be established just either by just looking at other certain key texts, I, I cite a bunch of them and I'm going to find, just so I can start naming some Specifics. I'm not going to like read them or whatever, but just if listeners want to start jotting things down. So Psalm 32, Psalm 50 and, and 51, there's this is, it's a lot in the Psalms I've seen Psalm 69, 103 and in the prophets, that is the biblical not so like 1st Samuel part of the prophets, 1st Samuel 15:22-23, Isaiah 1 Hosea 66, which is what Jesus quotes a few times. Amos 5, 21, 24 Micah 6, 68 Jeremiah 6, 20. I know there's a lot of numbers. I'll stop there. There's a couple more but, but basically you can just look at that from wanting and just be oh, like these are, this is about sacrifice. I mean sorry forgiveness sometimes explicitly apart from sacrifice most of those places. And, but let's talk about why that is though. Like why would they like so it's there and sometimes that that is those texts are used to say this is all like worthless anyway or something like the Temple. And that's I also correct that in the book. So I don't want to get dragged myself into that rabbit hole. Well, it's not rabbit hole. It's part of my argument when we get to the New Testament and Jesus critique of the Temple and all that stuff and the prophetic critique of sacrifice. So there's a lot left unsaid. I'll just say that for listeners. But let's go to the sacrificial system itself. What, what was it it has what were its, its functions and how in the Torah there is a distinction between certain sins. Well, there's actually several, but we'll just keep two broad categories. There's some sins that have a, a atoning. So in a sacrificial sense. One of the things I say and talk about in the beginning is how atonement just means too many things. And there's problems with that, I think contributing to a lot of the confusion and conflations. Sacrificial atonement translating the Hebrew verb kipper. So to decontaminate there's certain sins that have a sacrificial. Sacrificial atonement remedy. There are certain sins that do not and cannot have have one. Those sins in, in Leviticus 18 following, they're severe. So they produce an a pollution and impurity that pollutes person and the land. And the reason there's no sacrificial remedy for those things as I, as I show out, is because the atoning sacrifices are only decontaminating the pollution on the sanctuary from those other sins that aren't in this moral impurity, polluting the person, polluting the land category. Broadly speaking, those moral impurity sins that have no atoning, sacrifice, remedy are sins associated with murder, idolatry and sexual immorality. And the, the prophets expand murder much like Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount beyond just actually killing someone violently, physically. But it could be the slow accruing generational wealth inequality of, of, of not following the, the jubilee and the Sabbath laws about the land restoration and debt release and all this sort of things that, that lead them to, to attach field to field and house house and all these things. And it's associated with bloodshed and not so like economic oppression. It becomes linked to bloodshed for the, for this, for the community. That this is, this is a way of killing our neighbors. And so just to say that the murder gets expanded in, in the canon and Jesus takes that. So what's interesting is, is Leviticus no, like it's. These are built in. One of the points I make is that these are built in God ordained. Well known. Well known as in if you, if you, if we actually mean what we say, we read our Bible well known to people who are reading the Torah and stuff like oh this is, this is part of the Torah's whole like kind of theology of sin and communal responsibility that this isn't just about a personal, private. Sorry, it's always personal relationship with God that's, that's always there. But as Jeremiah says, what does it mean to know me, right? To do justice, to visit the orphan, the widow in their distress and all that this is. Is that not what it means to know me? Declares the Lord. So anyways, I'm sorry, it is although it's personal, it's not private, it's not individual. And so the way Leviticus and the Torah articulate this is that there are sins that can drag the community down back to disorder and chaos, to decreation. And so Jeremiah's like I look out and I see, you know, it's, it's just formless and void. Back to Genesis 1 conditions it's. And the, the built in limitations there are that there's certain sins, right, that can, that they pollute. And also there's things that aren't sins that pollute. And that's a whole other topic, moral ritual impurity. And that's. It's important but I won't touch it here. So with these sins that, that are not moral impurity, that pollute the Sanctuary, they have an atoning remedy because the sanctuary is decontaminated or atoned, that verb keeper by these atoning sacrifices. And so the place remains holy, sacred. It's like reconsecrated through these things and the Divine Presence is there that said they don't want what then becomes, you know, an easy abuse of this system of we can just sacrifice more or whatever, we can throw God feasts because there's also these sacrifices that have no decontaminating, have no atoning function. And these are ones that the offer eats and they're celebratory and so they're sacrifices that have no relation to sin. And you mentioned Passover. That's one of them. There's no relation to sin there. This is so Eucharist, Lord Supper, like that's not about, it's not about atonement at all. It can't be because we're eating it anyways. So there's all these kinds of sacrifices going on and then they, the, what the Torah is, is signifying though is that this, is this sacrificial system is the most you can do to remedy these like on, on that kind of ritual level. And that leaves a lot left with a built in God ordained you. These are, these are serious. You do these kinds of things as a society and it will lead to disintegration, you'll collapse back down. And so the temple, God will abandon it, all these sorts of things because it's, it's resting on, on pollution. It can't sustain it anymore. And so you're, you're, you're, you're kind of making your own bed so to speak. You know, you're, you're, you're mixing your own poisonous cocktail. And yeah, so you can either look at those texts that I quoted before and you know there's, there's a lot others that, that just show like hey. For God's forgiveness is not like just restricted to this sort of thing. And in fact it could actually lead you to misunderstand what. Yeah, what, what the solution, what, what our problem is, what the solution is. And if we think you can just have the temple of the Lord. The temple of the Lord and ongoing daily burn offerings and whatever, throwing feasts in these festivals that we're all eating and so we're making God happy or whatever or we're doing enough of these atoning sacrifices. The prophecy. No, no, no, that's not going to work because you're, you're not attuning to that. There's limits here. And these are God ordained. So that's what I'm trying to show. Like this is on, on purpose, intentional. These are God ordained in limits to what sacrifice vices can solve. And the prophets knew what we need, especially when they're in exile. They've experienced covenant, you know, curse and death. That, that, that expulsion because of moral impurity. They know that we need a, a moral purification of which that was never atoning. Sacrifices do not cleanse the person, they only cleanse the sanctuary. And what cleanses people, ritually speaking, when you like have childbirth, abnormal or any sexual act, slash the, the seminal emission, but also menstruation like, but then there's abnormal genital discharge charges. Things associated with procreation is what I'm trying to get at. Whether it's, it's good and you have a baby or it's some sort of abnormal genital discharge. There are things associated with procreation and then things associated with death lead to ritual impurity. And that prevents you from having access to the holy space. So the way you get rid of those things is by time and water. And it varies depending on what's going on there. But essentially you got a washing of the body. Water cleanses the body and sufficient time. And then that is what allows you your ritually pure, that allows you access to the holy space. So what the province is, they take that and they say okay, on analogy then moral purification, because there is no sacrificial remedy and sacrifice has never purified the person anyways. They don't go to sacrificial remedies, metaphors to talk about this promised restoration. What they do do is go to divine water washing by the spirit and a cleansing in that way of the body. This is why John the Baptist is doing things in water. There's all this washing and cleansing language in the New Testament. So that though is not a sacrifice. That, that is, that is God initiating this kind of out of this extra. Outside of the temple forgiveness that I just supplied a bunch of verses that, that is. So this wasn't made up I guess in the New Testament. This is anchored in the Old Testament even. It's not just Jesus and the apostles being like, well you all thought that and it was all just kind of like either like just just completely inadequate and you should figure that out already. It's all just a metaphor or something like that. It's not that it's, it's that in its own like start from the very beginning. There's always been limits to what it could do. And it was attending to those limits that produce or ought to have. And that was, I think, the goal, a sense of communal responsibility, that we need to make sure we are people of justice, that we. You become like what you worship, and that's why idolatry matters, you know, and for instance, or like, what is murder and how are we taking care of our neighbors, that these are the things that either make or break a people, a community. That said, the prophets proclaim the good news. Like, as much as this breaks us, God will hold us, God will restore us and all these things, but not because he's going to offer some giant Day of Atonement thing. It's because he's going to wash you with his spirit. And yeah, so I hope that that's, that's that. Yeah, I hope that made made sense. You can go just straight up proof texting, which I'm not usually a fan of, but you can also see how it's ingrained in the system itself that there are built in limits. And so the forgiveness offered at the temple is, is not the only means, nor even the, the adequate means of forgiveness. And that's not just because of some post like Jesus, oh, we have to have some way of making Jesus better. So we got things. It's like, no, I was there right from the beginning. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I appreciate that. And I am finding myself thinking about how I was discipled to think about things and then kind of wanting to, to present that a little bit and then ask you to present, you know, kind of a counterpoint or a clarification on some of these things. So I don't know that I'll do that entirely. But, but it did, it did bring me here because I think one of the things that again, in kind of, in addition to that, to the sacrificial system, this is by. This is God's design. This is, this is divine design. But I think again, I was kind of discipled to say, see, it was, see, it wasn't enough. And so now we need Jesus. And this, this kind of feels weird, right? But there's, but there's also something in that, that when, when you say that out loud, as was, as was said out loud, I've heard it many times, then it so follows that if this was an inadequate system and kind of an inadequate system in a bad way, right? Like kind of, oops, God messed up, he had all of this and just didn't know we were going to be so terrible, I guess. And then Jesus comes and then he ends up critiquing this system in that paradigm. So I guess partially what I'm saying is Jesus can't help this. This Jesus that we see can't help but critique this inadequate system. But you come along and say, no, no, no, this isn't actually what's happening. Right. Jesus isn't actually critiquing this system that you've just described, at least in part. Jesus isn't actually coming along and critiquing the system. So that's a. And then also B, when you mentioned ritual impurity as opposed to moral impurity, you also come along and say he's not actually trying to do away with anything related to that system either. And so I guess it. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Right. In fact. Right. [00:36:12] Speaker A: He affirms it. Right. And he's operating inside of it, which I think is really important because I think a. It's, it's more in line with what I've come to believe about God's character is that when God would present God self on earth, that God would operate inside of this design that God had made. So that's, you know, that's, that's the first thing for me, I guess that I would say that. And then as I was trying to get all of my non pronouns, I was forgetting how I wanted to say for the second thing, but maybe we can start there. That Jesus comes, he operates, that he affirm, he operates within it. He affirms it. He's not becoming a critic of the temple system. And I guess partially I'm. I want to just again point out kind of where you're going with this argument, which is that his, his death, though also isn't inside of it in some of the ways that we have been brought up to believe. So maybe we could start with the purity system. [00:37:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:37:38] Speaker A: And the sacrificial system that he's not coming in as a critic of those. He's coming in actually as a, as an affirmer of those in how he does his ministry. [00:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me make sure I have taken my own notes. So there's a difference. Let me just like some hypothetical listeners probably like, well, Jesus talks about, you know, he quotes Hosea that you just. That I just cited earlier. The. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I didn't, I didn't quote it earlier, but I cited the Hosea that Jesus then quotes. So I address that directly in the book. But to understand the nuance of what's going on, of what. So, so to understand that what Jesus is doing is he's operating within the logic and the, the theological and moral framework of both ritual purity and then moral impurity. So his critique, Jesus critiques the leadership. Jesus critiques, you know, priests. But that's different than the temple per se, the temple system per se. So for ritual purity and a lot of this I've. And as I said in the book, just if you, if you want to focus treatment on this, on this topic of Jesus and ritual impurity, then Matthew Thiessen's Jesus and the forces of death would be the, the, the most current go to on that topic. And I engage it a lot in my, in my chapters there. But so Jesus, what he's, what he does is. Let's just give a couple here an example I use. But also, you know, there's more. But when he heals folks with lepra. So it's not the, it's not the like limbs falling off disease that is named that today. It's more like psoriasis or eczema or those kinds of things that turn your skin white and flaky. So actually generally speaking it was a pretty relatively mild disease. And the reason that was associated with ritual impurities because it looked like you were a walk. You're, you're, you're decaying, you're here. Of course your, your, your skin's turning white and scaly. And he heals those things and he'll tell them go now. Like he's brought them. So the purification process for, for leper and Leviticus is multi staged. There's like several things going on. The only thing Jesus does is bring people to a state in which sometimes these conditions went away or at least for a time. Then they can access the temple. So once it goes away, you then go, hey priest, look, I, I like this. Can you inspect me? And there's a whole like, you know, like I said, a multi stage thing. And Jesus says you're, go start that process. He doesn't, he's not taking the place of a priest. He's not declaring them claim versus the priest. He's not doing any of any of those things. He's bringing them to like home. Like a World Series is on. And I'm not a baseball fan actually though my, my dad is. But like he, he's bringing him up to bat. Like it's like okay, you're, you're starting, you're, you're, you're there but you still got to do like everything else. And he tells him to go do this. And this happens across a couple different gospels. But then also, you know, in, in Matthew he has this discourse Matthew 23, people, you know, woes of the scribes and Pharisees. And he, he says there, you know, he. What I'm trying to show is that Jesus, Jesus thinks the Temple works and is effective for the things which the Torah says it works and is effective for. So it can't deal with those moral imper. Great impurities. And if left unrepentant, you know, that's what, that's why he then says the temple's gonna be destroyed not because the whole system doesn't work, but because it's reached like it actually it's working as designed, if that makes sense. Like that's the reason the temple is going to be destroyed again is because of the saturation, these moral impurities. And so like I said, Jesus working within the logic of moral impurity, on the other side of that, he thinks it's still effective for what? For dealing with ritual imperities. And then in Matthew 23, he says, you know, he, he's talking about people who are, who are swearing by different aspects in the, and in the sanctuary and saying like, well, you know, I didn't swear by this more important bit. So it's like, I don't need to. I'm not obligated anymore to do whatever I said. But Jesus response I think is, is interesting in, in there he says in verse 19 to Matthew 23:19, he says how, how blind you are for which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred, that sanctifies the gift. So he's, that's what Ezekiel says. Whatever touches the altar becomes sanctified. So Jesus like he, he's. He thanks the altar sanctifies the gifts. So whoever swore, swears by the altar, swears by it and everything on it. And whoever swears by the sanctuary swears by it and the one who dwells in it. So he, he holds some view. You know, some people overplay the exile bit and both in scholarship and in sermons and things, but Jesus affirms God's presence there in some capacity. And it's always in some capacity because even when Solomon's dedicating the temple, he has these similar. Like what is, like what is actually going on here? There is some sort of presence there. But also, I don't know because then Jesus next verse or next statement, which is the next verse says whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by the one who's seated upon it. So you have God. It's both, right? It's not one or the other. It's not like this, like, oh, if God's in the temple and he's not somewhere else or something like that, or that his presence exceeds the temple. But I think those, you know, for now, for our conversation, Jesus is affirming the protocols and efficacy of the temple for that which the sacrifices are efficacious for. He obviously can't affirm the temple being efficacious for something it was never meant to be efficacious for. And he also affirms, you know, that the altar consecrates that which is on it and that God is, is dwelling within it. And so his, his prophecies about the temple's destruction are not because it's wrong, it's bad, it's outdated, it's whatever it. The. He's just like Jeremiah and these other prophets. I mean, Jeremiah was also a priest. And so his critique, what I'm trying to say is critique of the temple and proclaiming its destruction isn't somehow anti priest, anti sacrifice, anti temple, like as a system. Jesus, it's his. It's Jesus's critiques of moral impurity. And so you see how he links, let's say idolatry with mammon, right? So economic things. So he's doing a similar thing that the prophets do with, with expanding murder, like if you hate, you know, in Sermon on the Mount. So when you look at Jesus teachings on idolatry and sexual immorality and losing the other one was the other idolatry, sexual immorality, murder. Yeah, yeah, murder. That, that is why the temple is going to be destroyed. God will abandon it. Right? So again, you can't abandon something you're not in. And that's what Jesus, like, it's been left this, it's been abandoned. Similar thing going on in the Prophet. So those. We have to distinguish between critiquing the temple and actually operating within the logic of the theology of what the temple was doing, that even in the Torah was like, yeah, enough of these things accumulate. They can't to have no sacrificial remedy. This is the future. So the destruction of the temple and exile and those kinds of things, they happen. That is the system working as intended. We can discuss or go beyond what I do in the book in terms of theology of that and what that does about our picture of God or whatever, but just in terms of the keying into the sacrificial aspect of things and Jesus's teachings there he is not critiquing the sacrificial system. He's. He's operating within its moral logic and universe, in the prophetic universe there. And yeah. So I think hopefully that's enough or enough to go by for now. Let me know if is anything left that I. Did I leave something open ended or too confusing there or. [00:46:25] Speaker A: No, you didn't. I think. Yeah, you keyed up where I wanted to go next, but in a different way. So I'm gonna ask you this. And then realizing in part that I'm like, I was so tempted to kind of start at the end with this book because that is where, you know, things just really start. I'm like, oh, oh. Like kind of some light bulbs started coming off for me. But I do think it's important as you line out in the book, you know, to start with the sacrificial system, to start with the Old Testament again, there's, there's so much here I forgot to name at the beginning of our conversation. A, this is a thick book. B, this is a technical book in a lot of ways. And so we're talking on some, just kind of, on some broad strokes here and some high level stuff. But for folks who are really interested, as you've mentioned a time or two in the receipts, grab the book because there's just so much more detail there that fills out what we're talking about. And I'm becoming more aware of that as we're having the conversation. So. But on that, where I wanted to start, because where I just felt just so much kind of relief in this world of penal substitutionary atonement was this idea of Jesus death being in solidarity with his people and not as a substitute for his people. And so when I say I'll come at this in a different way, you talked about the destruction of the temple and this is one of the kind of, I don't know, it feels like a famous gospel passages to me when Jesus equates his death with the destruction of the temple. And there's all sorts of things going on there, but one of the places that hit for me, I'll say shout out to my Old Testament professor who is also an Ezekiel scholar. The Ezekiel part came out for me. And Ezekiel, I'll say, if people haven't read Ezekiel, go back and read Ezekiel. Just, just, just, just pick it up and go back and read Ezekiel. It is so wild. And anyway, it's just, it's so wild. It's not one of my favorite books, to be completely honest, but I hate that the more I'm reintroduced to Ezekiel, the more I love him. Don't tell Sarah Wells because anyway, I, I hate it. But this was one of those places. So Ezekiel does some wild things and in, in the book and oh gosh. But when you compared Ezekiel as a prophet to Jesus and this solidarity piece, I. That blew my mind. So I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that a bit and just maybe kind of talk about this will be one of the, one of the last things we talk about. But I'm wondering if you can talk about that piece because it's so crucial to this kind of butting up against this, the, the punishment aspect and also butting up against this substitution aspect. Is this, is this solidarity? I'm also just going to throw out. Consider this a footnote, that one of the things that came to my mind when you talked about the solidarity piece is I started thinking about Paul's take on first fruits a whole different way, which maybe is not appropriate. I don't know if that now, now I'm like second guessing a lot of things that I thought that I thought I knew when it came to feasts and sacrifices and things like that. But I'm like, oh, I feel like this is. There's a connection there. But again, consider that first fruits comment a footnote. But I wish that you would elaborate on the, on the solidarity piece there. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right. This, is this, this kind of even for me as I was, you know, too much preamble. But basically I, I'm. It's not like you learn everything and okay, I'm gonna write this up or I don't know, maybe other people do that. That's one of the ring things that makes, that makes writing so difficult for me personally or like to know when something's finished and always thinking like, well, what else am I going to find? Because along the way I just found so many things seemingly by accident that I didn't realize that either just kind of shifted some things but then clarify whatever, you know, or just like, oh, that even further strengthens it. Like that's even a better. This even. That's better than what I was about to put, you know, you know, should go ahead and all that. And one of the things was seeing the connection between I. These critiques we talked about. So Jesus affirms the. Everything we just said before at the previous little discussion about ritual. Jesus working within the law to go to the temple and all that. And then, but then this victory over death and what's going and how central destruction of the temple act like is in the gospels and why and what. What's it doing there? And then how then does that make Jesus death? Saving in some way? And so, yeah, so I guess we'll start it this way is just like you said. So Ezekiel does things in solidarity, right? So prophets do these like, sign acts. And one of the things Ezekiel does, you know, is laying on his side and all that. He's not taking the place of the temple's destruction and the exile, but he is in his, you know, in that specific way, doing an act of solidarity. Now, Jesus takes this to the extreme, you know, and all that, but what the point there is that this is place sharing, right? This all is place sharing, not place taking. And this idea starts with, I think we. We can get this. Jesus death is solidarity. And then why is that saving? We can start it. And I think the gospels do this. You see this with respect to the temple and everything that it represents as the temple in Jerusalem. And then you expand that out into the universal curse creation is under. Right? So if he's doing this with the covenant curse, you know, and even seeing the parallels between Genesis 3 and the curses of the Mosaic covenant, there's like, yeah, okay, so we'll start there. And I think here's how these things kind of connect. I'll try to do this always try to do it briefly and then more self talk. Okay, so Jesus the same way, like Jesus touches, right? It's contact with the. With the ritual impure. Not always, you know, because sometimes he says it with his word. But I think there is an emphasis on his touch a lot of times. And I think the reason there's an emphasis on those and that it's not like it's cool when it happens from afar. It doesn't happen that often, but it's this touching, this contact of Jesus's contagious holiness. I think I'm borrowing that. I don't. Pretty sure that's another Matt Thiessen phrase, if not, it was his book that made me think of it. So either way, I'll give credit to him. I'm pretty sure he says it though, this contagious holiness, that instead of. It's Jesus contact with the sources of original impurity, which are the forces of death. So things associated with human finitude, even if it's procreation of birth, right? So even Jesus goes onto this. The. The. Because in the resurrection, there's no more death, therefore there's no more marriage and all this. Okay, Absolute. But it's Jesus contact. It's that contact. It's that touch that nullifies the forces of death and renders that purification. Right. So if it's, if it's a complex impurity like scale disease, lepra, then they have to go do the other purifications. And sometimes it's just boom, like you're, you're, you're healed. I think then what is happening by associate by Jesus associating his own death with the destruction of the temple and the Gospels, the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, Luke, I think do this narratively. And then John, as I say in the book and John is just like, just in case you don't get it, let's just say, let's just say there's a connection here, like straight up. But what's going on is it's Jesus's contact with death, with death as death, with, with the covenant curse as covenant curses. That touching of the divine holiness and life to that place that then results in resurrection in life through that and securing the blessing. But the other key to this is that does not spare Jerusalem or the temple or his followers. He says, you are going to drink of the same cup. You are going to be baptized with my baptism. Pick up your cross and follow me. Paul says we're co. Crucified with he Jesus. His dealing with the curse and how it's focused in on the Temple, given the links of what that means canonically to the creation, all creation being under a curse. And then you know, Luke going all the way back to this is the son of Adam, you know, Son of God. And so there's a link like, it's like, it's like the, the. I don't want to say it's a metaphor or analogy only um, because it's not that but like the connection between Jesus relationship to the temple is then. And I think it's well when you just sit with what the significance of the Temple was and second Temple Judaism is like this, this like meeting place of heaven and earth and what all that means, then that is why it has the cosmic significance precisely because it was in relationship to the temple and these, the covenant curse. But so the point is, or I guess a couple but like one, it's in solidarity and it's that. And it's that solidarity. It's that touching. It's that contact of Jesus's holy life and then breathing out of the spirit, right? This is the last. The way they, the way they, they articulate that he died. It's this like nod to descending of that, of that spirit that Ezekiel talks about cleansing and washing and all that and it's solidarity is that contact. And then the resurrection then signals the raising, the rising, the restoration, the renewal that, that, that ultimate that, that the curse is not the last word. And we already knew that textually. Deuteronomy says it, the prophets say it when there's going to be, you know, but the resurrection, first fruit, like it, boom. This is it. This is why in Acts they're saying, they're proclaiming the resurrection. The resurrection has a significance. It, it does because of the way in which Jesus died and how that death was, was construed and framed as solidarity with the temple. And so, but it's not spare. It's, it's, it's solidarity. It's not substitution. And neither is it. It's just for the bad guys or whatever, like Jerusalem. No, even Jesus disciples, because he's unveiling the way in which the life of God is shared with the world and gives life to the world that is paradoxically willing to bear and be under the, the weight of sin and not reproduce that sinful cycle of. As he was put to the fear of death. So we start trying to do. We start because we're sinned against. We start sinning in, in our efforts to save us from other people's sins against us and ours. And you know, in ours, we just. And that's, that's actually how sin reigns in death. This is just this web of, of mutually assured destruction, pretty much. And Jesus stops that. Right. So that, that's going to kill you. That's going to, that, that's, that's, that's the cost of the cross. So it's in solidarity, but it's not substitution, it's not spared. And his endurance of, of the curse, of touching down into the curse for us. And then we joined with him. Then that's why Paul can say things like we are living the death of Christ in our body so that life may be made known in you. It's the way of discipleship. So I think, seeing how it's not just, oh, look, Jesus affirms a ritual purity system. See, he said, does that. Right, right. It goes beyond that. Right. It's a temple. Yeah. Well, the significance of that isn't because the temples were over it, like what, you know, and all that. And, and it's, it, it was, it's. Yeah, like it was God's not in there or something. I said, well, Jesus actually said the opposite. And those points are good, but really it comes down to how they're seeing that the way in which Jesus Died in relation to the temple, in relation to his, to these announcements, and then that he was raised. That is the, it's that framing of it, that's conception of it that is the saving event. And so I even struggle, like in the book, to. And I admit this, like, I don't know. I even think representation is an inadequate word to talk about what I think the New Testament is proclaiming about the significance of Jesus. Death as a touching of death, as death as covenant, death as curse, to terminate it, exhaust it, and come out the other side. It's not a representation because we are in it and not in it in a metaphorical way, like, for that. Like in a lived reality, it can be in our bodies. Like Paul says, right, I'm burying in my body and all the. Again knowing Jesus and, and his sufferings being formed in the likeness of his death. In Philippians 3:10 or 3:10 and 11, read both one of them talks about the resurrection. And so it's that. I don't know. I don't think there's a good word enough really to, to, to summarize that unless it's, you know, the, the. The recapitulation that. That happens in Ephesians, the ironist takes up. But it's like there is something more real, more shared than just a representative. It's, it's. It's mutually experienced and lived. And, and because Christ is all things, and then all things and all things in heaven and on earth are gonna be summed up, recapitulated in and around, organized around him. And so what. It, what, what I, the, The image I come up with was a cosmic voodoo doll. I know it sounds really weird, but the, the only part of that, that I'm activating is like that sense of, like this, that thing, at least in a colloquial sense. I also, that's also why I don't even know if it's the best image put out there, but now it's in print. But like this, I just. This colloquial idea of you have a representation of a thing, you do something, you do an action to that thing, and it's experienced and felt to what it's connected with. Well, Jesus is connected to the cosmos as creators to say all these things that are being proclaimed about him in the New Testament. And so what happens to him is not substitutionary because we are brought into it, and then we are brought into it, according to Paul, in like, an active sense. We can now do this. Share your life with one another, welcome one another as God has welcomed you, so it becomes part of our restored agency. Because we've been enslaved to sin and death and bringing about. We've been living under these conditions. And it's not that Jesus saves us from some future. He's saving us from what we're already living under and being enslaved too by, by coming in and extinguishing that like touching it. And now when we are united with him, baptized into his death, all those sorts of things, now we can actively. Our agency is now resource that we can say, yes, we can say, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done in my body, to be joined with your body. And so the sacrificial metaphors then come in here for Paul because he activates the non atoning ones, the ones where the offer has a share in the sacrifice, in the food of it. And it was, it was thought both in pagan context and Israelite. So Paul talks about this in First Corinthians 10 and 11. That you're sharing in, you're having communion with the deity. It binds you to this. Now if the deity you're bound to is Jesus, then that does something right to your, or it should. That's what Paul you are. It reinforces this, this notion of discipleship as participation and solidarity. So it's double participation. Jesus creates the conditions for our participation. That's part of its uniqueness. What you said earlier, like when I say like Jesus, death is unique. One of the ways it's unique is because it creates the conditions for our participation in him. And it's not just that it creates the conditions for that. If we take some of the other language in the New Testament seriously about his being in all things and all things in Colossians 3:11, but that it, it, it, this is what's happening. And the announcement Paul says is God has reconciled the world God already has. Like this is all, this is the truth. This is the reality of the world. He because God has joined to our curse, to our death and has an come out victorious, we too then like that, that is just the reality of the world in which we live. And so we. Anything else is just us living in a lie, living in as if the world is something else than what it is. And what it is is the world loved by God, the world that God has made and has bound himself to in the person of Jesus Christ and in his body, the church and the sending of the Spirit, as both of which Paul calls first fruits in different contexts, the church and Jesus, depending on which letter we're reading Romans or First Corinthians, but that then the sacrificial metaphors of celebrating that victory. So those non atoning sacrifices typically are celebrations. And the Passover is celebrating Exodus. Jesus is our Passover lamb. We're celebrating through a sacrificial meal. Well actually it's a, it's a symbol of a sacrificial meal. It's not actually the passovers. You're doing it each, each week, but you're celebrating it. You're celebrating that victory through a sacrifice that is supposed to remind us that we are bound, we are communing, we are bound and united with Jesus, with this God. And for Paul, that activates like this part of his pastoral goal and agenda. Saying what we need to see ourselves as co. Crucified with Christ, as daily living out the death of Jesus so that life may be known to all. And it's not a masochistic sense, it's a way of saying the only way evil is conquered. Romans 12 is by good. And what is that good? That good is being unwilling to, to how should I put this? Jesus words on the cross and Stephen's martyr, I guess are a key. And it really raises the stakes of like, are we really ready to follow Jesus? You know, people do horrible things and we do horrible things. Is there ever a limit to our restoration and mercy that God has? Are we able to love our enemies? That's like have this mind that was in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2, 5 Romans 5. This is a demonstration of God's love while our enemies, ungodly sinners, helpless demonstration of his love and dying for our benefit. And that benefit to bind us to him so that we can no longer be slaves to sin. So that we can love one another, so that we can love God and that. That good of being willing to welcome one another, forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us, love one another as God has loved us. That has a cost. Like he's not, it's not like this is going to be easy in any sort of way. It's not like it sounds beautiful, but it's really hard to do in practice. And that's why we end up with martyrs. That's why we end up with people suffering. Because to walk this path is, is not to make the world more just that that's God's, that's God. That's what God's doing. Ultimately it's a walk, a path of, of faithfulness, of as Peter says, entrusting ourselves to the one who judges. Justly and that's why Jesus was able to, you know, be silent. Um, as Tryon and Peter says, that's what we're doing. Like, that's, this is the example, the pattern in which we are called to do. Um, so that's, that's a lot. I got myself off my, off my own topic there. But the solidarity, I guess it's not just like the point of emphasizing that is that it has everything to do with discipleship, has everything to do with being a follower of Jesus. And then beyond that, just what it means to be human. Right. That's a bigger stakes. Why does this matter for discipleship? Because what we think we're doing is attending to the shape of a human life that is the image of God who is Jesus. Is that like. So that's why discipleship is what it is, Christ likeness. Because we confess Christ is the true human one. And he's the true human one because he's the divine one becoming human. Like. And so this isn't about like attain a certain level of Christ likeness and then God like, oh, you've reached, you've reached sufficient Christ likeness. You're accepted now. Right. It's all grounded in God's love. That's, that's first, that's primary. And it's from that space that we too then can live. That cross shaped life with and for the world. So Paul, you know, filling up with his lacking, Christ's sufferings, his death may be. And working us, that life may be working other people. And that's like, I don't know, like that's the exegesis that's very hard in real life. Let's just put it out like this is. I think that's the claims in the New Testament. But like holy smokes, what is that? What, like what. No wonder people go like revert to substitutionary logics as, oh, think I don't need to do that. This is. We talk about the cross as something I get to avoid. That's more in one level that's more comforting, right? I don't know. So yeah, I just also named it like as much as I think that that is the exegesis of the New Testament, that claims of how our discipleship's related to all this and how it all focuses in on Jesus's solidarity with the temple, which is then with the covenant curse, which is the broader curse, and nullifying it coming out the other side. But it doesn't spare anything. So it's not substitutionary and what discipleship is. And it's like, oh my goodness. I think I've, you know, I can, I can like explain that on an exegetical level is. It's very scary in real life, especially growing up, as he said. And I'm not, you know, I don't know. I don't know whether I'm young or old right now in that weird middle bit. But the older I get, the more in some sense it's, it's very, it's very, it's very hard, sobering. You see just the trauma in the world of suffering and when we're just left with, well, God's there, God is there in the suffering. It's. I don't know if comfort's the right word there, you know, for that theology. That it's not, I guess becomes a question not so much how can God allow so much suffering, but how he can take that on, how he can take on all that suffering and, and be in it and with it. And not just as Jesus, that singular carpenter from Nazareth, but as grafting us into his body, right? So all our sufferings are his sufferings and vice versa. That whatever suffering we have as individuals have felt in ourselves, let alone what we know of from other. That we can empathize with from other, our loved ones. I'm not so sure. I'm trying to be careful. Like, I'm not so sure it's comforting to say God is within, that God has taken that up into God's own body, into the risen Christ body, and is and is there. I don't want to dictate that. That ought to be a comforting word, but that is, I think, what the New Testament is claiming. And I, and I think like when we see the realities, I guess like what it's all about, what it boils down to. And then that that's what makes me go, oh, I have to write this because these other theologies of who God is, however uncomfortable and hard this is those other theologies, I think when taken, like when actually being consistent with the character of God is presented in those things and what that then, like we talked about before, what that would then require of us in terms of justice and all this stuff, it just seems to me like more the same back and forth cycles of violence and retribution and justice and protection and protectionism and that that is what we need saving from. I know it's kind of a blunt way of putting it. I know people, Ernest Ive was one of them. You think that this is the truth until you think you need to hold on to these views of atonement theories and stuff, because you think that this is what, you know, has been inspired and revealed and it does something to you when you try to ignore those. I think he said intuitive, kind of like this kind of seems weird. And Anselm is one of those. He, like some people go to penal substitutionary atonement and say, oh, this is Anselm. It's like it's a view of Anselm satisfactionary atonement. But he, he rejects it. I don't, not that I like Anselm necessarily on all the other stuff, but at least he was uncomfortable with these, with, with, with this, what has come to be known as penal substitutionary atonement. But like that does something to us when we try to hold on to things that actually are just reiterations of the same systems of injustice that then get the propaganda to say no, that actually is justice. You know, the love, the, this hateful thing, this unjust thing that's actually God's righteousness, that, that's going to do something to you if you take it seriously and, and to others, not let alone what it does to your own formation as a human person. So anyways, yeah, I, I just, I, I think, you know, the older I get, it's not just like exegetical exercises, you know, trying to get an A on exegetical paper or a big project or whatever, and getting the, the grammar right and the illusions correct and whatever this matters and, and it, and it's hard, but I think the alternatives are, yeah, are, are pose more problems in many respects of that word, problem. So. Sorry, I kind of, I got myself, you know, going, going all, all all kinds of directions there. But yeah, the solidarity piece, I think is huge. And as important as it is, it's also. I didn't want to lose track of. This is about what we're trying to say. We need to direct our lives and orient it around and that itself is hard. I don't want to push this as like, see how happy this is or something, so I don't want to flatten it out. But yeah. [01:15:14] Speaker A: I'm going to go against my better judgment here because my, my better judgment is to say, well, that's a wrap because I couldn't have said it any better and I don't know that there's anything to add to what you just said. I'm so appreciative for your work in this space, but as I mentioned, I'm going to go against my better judgment and say one, say just a couple of last things first, what I was left with. If, If I may, one of the things I was left with on this solidarity piece, and you. And you elaborated more, and I'm so appreciative of that as well, because it just, it reinforced what I was feeling and added to it even more, which is this feeling that substitute, instead of solidarity robs us of so many things. [01:16:17] Speaker B: It. [01:16:17] Speaker A: It robs us of, Of. Of everything you just said. And I, I couldn't say it more eloquently, but, but I just. I just want to name that for myself that I felt. I felt like, oh, man, if, If, If. If this isn't participatory in some way. And I might say, for Jesus and for us, if this isn't participatory in some way, we have lost so much of what it means to be, in your words, like, connected to this deity of ours. And that's meaningful for me, and that matters for me. What I would say personally, how it hit me was Jesus came to earth and experienced human life, humanity in all ways, including death. And that is powerful. But also, as you say in the book, this. There's this, this also kind of reversal that if he's experiencing this death with us, and then as the scriptures say, we also experience the life with Him. Him. If there's a substitute there, then the with doesn't have the same meaning. And, and it was like that hit me. I was, I was, I was telling my husband. I was. I was kind of processing the book with him as I was reading it. And then I found myself just kind of like reiterating like, like almost paraphrasing some of Paul's writings at the end. And then I'm like, wait, wait a minute. No, no, no. I know that I've heard this version before. I know that I've said this before. I know that I've read this before. But saying it with this, with this paradigm shift for me felt very meaningful because I'm like, oh, these words mean different things coming out of my mouth now than they did 10 years ago or five years ago or a year ago even. And, And I'm grateful for that because I, I think that the. That seeing this as substitutionary as opposed to. In solidarity takes that away from. From us. I think it takes that away from us. So I just kind of wanted to. To just name that for myself, that I found myself restating some of Paul's, some of Paul's statements and then going, oh, like this. This actually feels different to say these things in, in this Way. [01:18:52] Speaker B: So, yeah, you were like unintentionally. [01:18:57] Speaker A: Yes. [01:18:58] Speaker B: Like finding yourself saying, Expressing it and realizing. Oh, wait, actually that sounds like what Paul has said. [01:19:04] Speaker A: That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Like, that's really cool. Like, I'm saying this stuff and I'm like, wait a minute, I know those words. Oh, yeah, that's because that's Paul. But it, it felt very different. Right. It just. I'm like, but. But I wasn't trying. Yeah, exactly right. It was unintentional. I wasn't trying to restate Paul, but I'm just restate. Restating this solidarity piece. And when I said it out loud, I'm like, oh, that sounds like Paul. And then I'm like, oh, that sounds like Paul. Like, this is, you know, this is kind of. [01:19:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:32] Speaker A: Anyway, what we're supposed to be getting out of this all along is. Is kind of what I'm saying. The other thing I want to do before we close out because I think it might have come through on the microphone. My little thing rang and it's like, please don't forget to go get your children, Alexis. That was my little alarm that said it's a school day. But I want to say this about the book before we close out for probably the third or fourth time, we're going to say this. If you want the receipts, read the book. This was great. I am again going to just throw out Dr. Colin Cornell, who's been on the podcast a couple of times, who introduced me to the book, and Andrew, actually. Thank you so much, Colin. But to say there's so much by the way of details and nuance and richness and all these things, scriptural stuff that we just. There's no possible way we could cover it. So by way of like preview or whetting people's appetites, I'll name a couple of the things that were on my list that we didn't get to talk about. You mentioned some of these, but you know, you talk about difference in sacrifices of. Of what is eaten, what isn't, of collective, well being sacrifices as opposed to other kinds of sacrifices. Oh my goodness. The whole thing in First John about the decontamination of even the cosmos. Like, come on, Andrew. Like, that was so great. Gosh, there was a really, really excellent treatment. I thought of a presentation of Jesus life, not necessarily his death. That was like. Anyway, just incredible. Let's see. We did talk about that. There was, let's see. Ah, the, the resurrection and ascension work which you touched at, at the at the end, there was a whole thing about, you know, talk about touching death, but, man, you want to talk about the death of the animals, the blood of the animals, the treatment of all of that in the Old Testament. Like, that's not even on my notes because I was like, I don't even know if we can go there. But that was really incredible analogy of Jesus as a surgeon, talking about Jesus, obedient life. Again, those things that I'm like, this is text that I could recite, but saying it had a different meaning after going through this text and this work. Um, let's see. Oh, there's a quicksand analogy there. I think that was at the bottom of my notes. So anyway, so there's just tons and tons of. Of stuff that we. That we didn't get to in the book that really fills out the richness of what you're bringing to us. So I just want to throw that out there as we close out and say there's so much that we didn't get to. But, you know, biblical scholarly nerds, if I can call some people that grab this, because I think it's just, you know, I told my husband, I'm like, this is the kind of book you need to. Need to read. So anyway, there's. There's so much there, and there's also lots of places, I think, where Andrew gives references. Right. Like you mentioned Matthew Thiessen. But there's also other scholars that you could really branch out and get yourself really in the weeds with some of this stuff, if that's your thing. And I just kind of want to recommend that people do, because it was great and it was a wonderful experience to read it and to. To process it with you today. So I think that's all I have. Andrew, what else do you have? [01:23:20] Speaker B: Well, before I forget to say thank you again, I'm just thankful to be able to discuss this. And also kind of, you know, you're limited in terms of when you're writing the book and who you're. Yeah. What it needs to be. Yeah. Within the genres and all that sort of stuff. But, like, here I think I was able to talk a little bit more about. We'll just call it the pastoral side of things or something like that. Even though I, you know, I. I do bring that in, especially in the beginning. In the. In the end. But, you know. Yeah. And I think maybe. Yes. But thank you. Because just to be able to share that and especially those of you. You're not going to buy the book like that's. All right. Not everyone reads a biblical studies book. You know, if this would be your first one ever. You've never read a biblical studies or theology book. I don't know. I don't know if this is the one. It's pretty, it's. It's big in terms of that. But you know, I'm, I'm. I think or I hope that this conversation will at least you know, give you some things as you go and read the Bible, you know, again and give you some things to think about. Um, I think the only thing maybe I'll say is actually not stuff from. From me. But as I was talking about the, the that was this pastoral implication, things that just sprang to mind. This caveat I say to my students when we're talking about, you know, there's like. I don't know if I said the word cruciform or cruciformity. And that kind of sounds weird. I'm borrowing it from a. Some Michael Gorman. But other, other New Testament scholars use it but to name like our pattern, our shape of, of the, the. The. The crosses. Not just the shape. Oh, sorry. Not salvation. Well, we all get that. Christians at least, but it's also the shape. Right. And, but that though the caveat on that side that I wanted to maybe flag is how just to name how it's been used to a. Weaponized. How this notion of suffering with Christ has been weaponized especially by those empowered to maintain a status quo right to say you're like, it's okay, you're Christ called us a suffering like what you know, put up with it or something. And so I'll just. I think this would be. You can find this somewhere online or whatever, but Howard Thurman in 1935 wrote a brief article called Good News for the Underprivileged and goes through exactly this. Howard Thurman, if you don't know him well, start. Start reading his things. [01:25:51] Speaker A: But. [01:25:53] Speaker B: And you know, influential on Martin Luther King and stuff. But one of the points is, you know, this, this, this call to suffer with Christ is used by the exploiters. No, now I'll quote him. Used quote. Used by the exploiters of the weak to keep them submissive and subservient. But he has, you know, he's working through what we can't abandon Christ teaching, but just what that means. But I think for us, for us today especially just attend to who's telling you these things. Who is saying that your suffering allows you to share the sufferings of Christ, you know, from that pattern or that shape of the cross, the cruciformity, the cruciform life sharing in Jesus sufferings. When it's said by those in power, it's very often as a way to, for them not to be held accountable. Right. To that, that, that they're maintaining a system that Jesus was exposing as corrupt in, in the way he died. That this, this is not actually justice. This isn't, you know, it was a lawful Roman, you know, execution. And people would be like, well, what sin did he commit? You know, what, what, what kind of peace was he deserving? You know, like what did he do to deserve to die? You know, by the way you're crucified. That, that's. The Romans did it. You know, this wasn't just murder, this was a state sponsored execution. So I mean, think, just think about what happens when, when someone's arrested or killed by police, you know, those kinds of things. That's exactly. Maybe. Yeah. You know, when you're proclaiming a crucified thing, it's not a back alley murder, you know, you're talking about the authorities getting at this person. So all that to say, Let me get back to, to this because now you have to pick up your children too. That the pattern of the cross, that cr. Cruciform message is spoken to the powerful to get them to divest from it for the sake of the week. Right? It's, it's. But, and as a word from the weak to the weak, when it's mutual, you know, when you're offering mutual comfort, you know, then it's an encouragement that you're not alone in yourself. We're, we are together with Christ, God is here. But that's only, that only means what it means because of who's saying it. Like who's saying it does matter and why they're saying it. So as a word from the powerful to the weak, you know, it's just, it's, it's, I, I think it's blasphemy of, of what the cross is and what it is dismantling and exposing from, from the powers. And so I just want to throw that out there because that language of suffering with Christ can and has been weaponized. And even so, like Howard Thurman says, even so, even while it is being that we, we cannot abandon Jesus teaching and what that means. Right? And so fight, resist, fight, fight, like these, these problematic theologies, even when they're trying to take something like this notion of sharing in Christ's sufferings that can also be misused and abused. So I just wanted to, since I went off on on that, I just wanted to flag the ways in which that also can be miscontrued. All that to say like, so I wasn't able to get that in the book. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss it and kind of tease out some of these implications. Whether you read the book or not. I hope this was beneficial to you in some way. And and if anything gets you back into the scriptures and curious. [01:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks again so much, Andrew. Really appreciative of being on and bringing up Thurman always. Again, the book is Lamb of the Free, recovering the varied sacrificial understandings of Jesus's death. And I'll have the link for the book and the other things that were mentioned in the Show Notes today. Thanks again so much for coming on. [01:29:45] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:29:48] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the Show Notes Music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit us at ThatMakeStoreSENSE dot.