ChatGPT as a chess coach?

I had a thought yesterday - to upload a pgn of a game for analysis, to see what it can offer these days. Just a few months ago, the AI didn't have a good grasp of the rules and played plenty of illegal - not just bad - moves. But things have changed. I quickly played a bullet game to generate a pgn, then uploaded it to ChatGPT with the prompt:

I'd like you to give me a breakdown of the game. I was playing white in this game. Maybe elaborate with prose, so not just in chess variations. Explain what I was doing, what Black was doing, where I made good moves and poor moves. Can you annotate a game like this? 

I then pasted in the PGN, which was a one-sided affair, to be sure, but involved some appreciation of dynamics, and an opening of the centre with a break (11.c5 in this case) to counter the opponent’s plays on the kingside towards my castled king.[1] The time control was 2+1, so I missed some tactical shots. The point isn’t the quality of this game (please do not look too closely!) as much as the way ChatGPT managed to understand what was going on and offer reasonable annotations with tips for improvement!

This is a gif of the game, and beneath that, ChatGPT’s fascinating response (remember: all I gave it was the pgn).What is obvious to me is that, despite its limits, ChatGPT now better understand chess and indeed offers something useful. It is a long way from the insights of a chess coach, of course, but I imagine it will help beginners even now, and as the AI improves, even intermediate players. I haven't yet played with adjustments, asking the AI to search to a certain depth, or to use Grandmaster level analysis etc. But it is a glimpse into what it can offer. What do you think?

(Alternatively, you can play through it here)

Opening: Old Indian Defense: Normal Variation

1. c4 d6 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nbd7 4. e4 e5
• You initiated the game with the English Opening, transitioning into a central pawn structure typical of the King's Indian or Old Indian setups.
• Black's 1...d6 aims for a flexible pawn structure but concedes some central space early.
• Your response with 4. e4 and 5. d4 seized central control, putting immediate pressure on Black to react.
2. 5...Be7 6. d5
• With 6. d5, you pushed forward aggressively to claim space. This move restricts Black's pawn breaks (like ...d5) but leaves you with a potential overextended pawn on d5 that needs support.

---

Middle Game: Strategic Manoeuvres

3. 6...c6 7. Bd3 Qc7 8. O-O h6
• Black prepares a potential pawn break (...cxd5) while developing pieces passively. The move 8...h6 is slow and doesn’t contribute to counterplay.
• Your moves, like 7. Bd3 and 8. O-O, develop harmoniously and aim at supporting the center.
4. 9. Be3 Rg8 10. Rc1 g5
• Black begins a dubious kingside pawn push with ...g5, aiming to generate activity but leaving the king vulnerable.
• Your 10. Rc1 prepares for queenside activity, highlighting a good strategic plan to counter Black’s aggression.
5. 11. c5
• A strong break! You shift focus to the queenside where you hold an advantage. This move undermines Black’s pawn structure and forces open lines.
• Black’s response, 11...Nf8, wastes time and fails to address the queenside pressure.

---

Tactical Phase: Opening the Center

6. 12. cxd6 Bxd6 13. dxc6 bxc6
• Your sequence of exchanges opens up the board, creating weaknesses in Black’s pawn structure, particularly the isolated pawn on c6.
• Black is left with fewer active pieces and a vulnerable king in the center.
7. 14. Nd5 Nxd5 15. exd5
• By sacrificing the knight temporarily, you open more lines and gain a passed pawn on d5. This move puts tremendous pressure on Black’s position.
• Black’s 15...c5 tries to block the passed pawn but creates a backward pawn on d6.

---

Endgame Transition: Exploiting Weaknesses

8. 16. b4 Nd7 17. bxc5 Bxc5
• With 16. b4, you launch a decisive queenside attack. Black’s position collapses as your pawns dominate.
• The exchange sacrifices you initiated aim to simplify the position, leaving Black with structural weaknesses and an exposed king.
9. 19. Bb5+ Bd7 20. Bxd7+ Kxd7
• A decisive tactic! By forcing the king to d7, you bring the game closer to its conclusion, where your active pieces dominate.
10. 21. Nxe5+

• A winning tactical shot. Your knight forks the king and key pawns, and Black resigns here due to overwhelming material and positional deficits.

---

Strengths of Your Play

• Strategic Awareness: You consistently exploited Black's weaknesses, particularly on the queenside.
• Dynamic Play: Moves like 11. c5 and 16. b4 showcased your ability to generate counterplay and create opportunities.
• Exploitation of Opponent's Mistakes: Black's kingside pawn push (10...g5) was overly ambitious, and you capitalised on this by targeting the vulnerable queenside.

---

Areas for Improvement

• Faster Development: While your moves were strong, slightly quicker development (e.g., bringing the rooks into play sooner) could make your position even more dominant.
• Pawn Safety: After 6. d5, the pawn became a strength but could also become a liability. Always ensure sufficient backup for advanced pawns.

---

Summary

You played an excellent game, leveraging positional advantages and dynamic tactics. Black’s overextension on the kingside and lack of central counterplay allowed you to dominate the queenside and transition smoothly to a winning endgame. Well done!

---

[1] [Event "Casual bullet game"] [Date "2024.11.29"] [White "Chris"] [Black "Anonymous"] [Result "1-0"] [UTCDate "2024.11.29"] [UTCTime "09:46:19"] [Variant "Standard"] [ECO "A55"] [Opening "Old Indian Defense: Normal Variation"] [Termination "Time forfeit"] [Annotator "lichess.org"] 1. c4 { [%clk 0:02:00] } 1... d6 { [%clk 0:02:00] } 2. Nc3 { [%clk 0:02:00] } 2... Nf6 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 3. Nf3 { [%clk 0:01:59] } 3... Nbd7 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 4. e4 { [%clk 0:01:56] } 4... e5 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 5. d4 { [%clk 0:01:55] } { A55 Old Indian Defense: Normal Variation } 5... Be7 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 6. d5 { [%clk 0:01:50] } 6... c6 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 7. Bd3 { [%clk 0:01:49] } 7... Qc7 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 8. O-O { [%clk 0:01:49] } 8... h6 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 9. Be3 { [%clk 0:01:46] } 9... Rg8 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 10. Rc1 { [%clk 0:01:41] } 10... g5 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 11. c5 { [%clk 0:01:29] } 11... Nf8 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 12. cxd6 { [%clk 0:01:29] } 12... Bxd6 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 13. dxc6 { [%clk 0:01:29] } 13... bxc6 { [%clk 0:02:01] } 14. Nd5 { [%clk 0:01:25] } 14... Nxd5 { [%clk 0:01:56] } 15. exd5 { [%clk 0:01:24] } 15... c5 { [%clk 0:01:55] } 16. b4 { [%clk 0:01:22] } 16... Nd7 { [%clk 0:01:50] } 17. bxc5 { [%clk 0:01:20] } 17... Bxc5 { [%clk 0:01:50] } 18. Bxc5 { [%clk 0:01:19] } 18... Nxc5 { [%clk 0:01:50] } 19. Bb5+ { [%clk 0:01:20] } 19... Bd7 { [%clk 0:01:49] } 20. Bxd7+ { [%clk 0:01:19] } 20... Kxd7 { [%clk 0:01:49] } 21. Nxe5+ { [%clk 0:01:10] } { Black left the game. } 1-0

 

One hundred and eighty freekin seven!

I've been blogging on and (OK, usually) off for 19 years now. Fruitful years of public service bringing the best of cutting edge theological insights and reporting.

In particular, I remember my ground-breaking reporting 10 years ago today, when I directed your collective attention to the Rapture Ready Index. 

As I stated 10 years ago in the blog entitled "WARNING: Near record DEFCON rapture levels"

The webpage http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html has all the details. (and surely it can be trusted cos it's a random webpage)

The R.I. was updated yesterday to a shocking 186!

I know, that’s what I thought! One hundred and eighty flippin six!

Dividing this by three angels and a golf club (31) makes this the even more sinister number 6. In other words, we are pushing the raptureometer into DEFCON asbestos underpants.

Well, ten years later, no doubt given their focus on things like 

• the proliferation of liberalism ("the left has become fanatical in its opposition to Trump", they note), 
• the kings of the east (do what?), 
• and ecumenism (pure. evil.)

... the R.I. is now set - and you might want to put down your cup of tea to read this - at a shocking

187!

So get your affairs in order, send that final email to loved ones, get your cats and dogs put into after the rapture pet care and see you the other side when we can finally enjoy the eschatological waterboarding of everyone else. 

If this is my last blog post, you know why.

Seth Heringer responds to my JTI review of his book, "History and Theology"

When Seth Heringer published his important book, Uniting History and Theology: A Theological Critiqueof the Historical Method (London: Fortress Academic, 2018), I knew it was going to be a crucial conversation partner for those of us interested in the relationship between theological truth claims, the articulation of these, and the task of historical-critical biblical scholarship. So I published a fairly robust but very appreciative review in the Journal of Theological Interpretation (2022, Vol.16 [2], 275-292). (I'm proud to say that I managed to smuggle a Father Ted line in, here, so the essay is entitled: "Down with This Sort of Thing: Seth Heringer and the End of the Historical-Critical Method"! 😁). 

I felt, however, that my review deserved a bit of pushback. I am therefore delighted that Seth has agreed to respond to my review. In what follows he usefully clarifies a number of issues and offers me plenty to think about, for example when it comes to my complaint that his brand of narrative constructivism closes down conversations with those outside his own poetic. 

So, let me hand over to Seth to continue this vital conversation. Please feel free to share this as widely as possible! 

-------------------------------------

I want to thank Chris for his thorough engagement and insightful comments on my book History and Theology: A Theological Critique of the Historical Method in the December 2022 issue of JTI. His article does a superb job of focusing on key critiques in my larger argument against the historical-critical method. I also appreciate the space he is giving me here to offer some clarification of my arguments and to address some of the constructive suggestions he raises on how the book could be improved.

Places of Agreement

First, Tilling is right to point out that my work would have been improved by adding more direct theological argumentation. Many of my criticisms could have been deepened by adding theological reasoning to my philosophical and methodological focus. I am thankful that others have taken up more theologically-focused work.[1]  I think, however, that the title of the book accurately represents my project of leveling a theological critique of the historical method. I use the philosophy of history and historiography to sharpen and develop my argument, but at core, the critique is theological. It is theological because it says that the historical method as currently practiced is incompatible with Christian commitments. Thus, it is asks Christians to let their theology shape their scholarship. The historical method demands the opposite and forces Christians to pretend or dissemble in order to participate. Christians are unable to see the world neutrally, and the Christian faith, and Jesus, demand us do to the exact opposite. The Christian faith does not ask us to hide our faith and beliefs so that we can participate in discussions about what the world would be like if God could not act in the world. Rather, we are asked to live according to a different wisdom, a different story. The old Baptist chorus, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior, all the daylong” cannot be sung neutrally. We have a story and song, and Christians should stop pretending that the world works in a way contrary to that story and song in order to participate in “public” discussions of the past. Although I do not engage as directly with theological arguments as I could, the heart of my argument is deeply theological.

Another place of agreement is Tilling’s suggestion that some of my philosophical work could benefit from wider engagement with criticisms of constructivism and a clearer ontology. Agreed. I am conversant in these areas but did not explore them at depth. My arguments would be enriched with further work and clarification here.

Places of Clarification

Despite some of my constructivist language, I think the historical past existed. Events happened in the past and historians can discuss them. I reject Frei’s retreat from history to narrative. I criticize Kähler for not being clearer about his own historical claims. Historical claims are essential to the Christian faith. One cannot tell the Christian story without claims about Jesus’ death and resurrection in history.

My core understanding of history comes in the first sentence of the Introduction: “History is the combination of events we live and the stories we tell about them” (xi). The reason this two-leveled understanding of history so defines my thinking is that I believe one level (events) exists in concrete reality and the other level (narratives) does not.[2] I use a zodiac analogy to explain this (125). When we look up at the night sky, we see a chaos of stars jumbled together against a black background. Some are closer to others, some are clearer, and some are almost imperceptible. If we stare at them long enough our minds start drawing lines to connect them into shapes and patterns. The stars exist in the sky giving off brilliant light, but the patterns and shapes we create do not exist in the same way. They are interpretations we place onto reality to draw connections and make it more interesting. Similar to this, I believe that events exist in a chaos of the historical past like the stars in the sky, some of them being easier to access and others almost impossible to recover. When we stare at them long enough, we create narratives to connect them in interesting and insightful ways. These narratives don’t exist in the same way as events. Humans create them and lay them on top of events as imaginative constructions. A historian, however, cannot dig in the ground, discover one, dust it off, and say, “ah, now I have found a narrative of history.” Narratives are not those sorts of things.  People cannot gather around, examine together, and discuss narratives as they would an ancient manuscript or statue. There is no surface texture, no tool-marks, no ink-formed words that can be agreed upon through observation.

So as to the question of whether I am a constructivist, at the level of events, no, but at the level of narratives, yes. I do not think narratives exist in reality like events of the past. I do not think constructions like “the Renaissance” have existence aside from in the mind of the scholar. You cannot dig it up and dust it off. These constructions are created by historians according to how they understand the world. They are constructed according to a poetic, a hypothesis, a worldview. They are like the lines drawn between the stars in the sky that have an existence only in the mind of the observer. And different observers will draw the lines differently based on how their minds are predisposed to connect events into beautiful and compelling narratives.

My narrative constructivism has one exception: the plan of God that runs from creation to new creation. This narrative exists because God is the one drawing the lines that connect events together. When God draws the lines, they determine reality in a way entirely unique and unrepeatable by humanity. The problem for humanity is that we have no way on our own to test the narratives we create with this narrative that God has created. I have little confidence that some historians are so skilled and so objective that they can shed their distorting lenses better than everyone else in the world so as to give them privileged access to God’s narrative. And even if they could, we would have no way to know this on our own, for such an assessment needs privileged access to God’s narrative so as to compare it with what historians create. To do this, we need help. We need to see with supernatural wisdom how events are connected. In other words, we need revelation. We need God to reveal to us how the past, present, and future are connected in God’s larger story. This story, once revealed, can and will appeal to many. But it is not one that just arises on its own for it will appear as foolishness to the world. Other stories will fit better with secular minds; naturalism will appeal to their aesthetics.

Places of Minor Disagreement

Tilling has raised the issue of whether narrative constructivism will close down conversations with those outside my own poetic? In other words, have I limited my conversation partners to only other Christians? To answer this question I draw on the work of Hayden White by saying all narratives enter into a contested space seeking a hearing. Each narrative is shaped by the poetic of its creator. So, Christians should enter into this contested space and offer their own, unique poetic that is shaped by the Christian story. If some refuse to hear Christian stories because they do not follow their expected rules for acceptable poetics, there is nothing Christians can do to force the wider public to give their narratives a hearing. What they can do is offer an alternative poetic with unique narratives that connect the events of the world according to what God has revealed. I believe the Christian narratives will offer a broader, more vibrant, meaningful, profound, and exciting view of the events of history. They give the world purpose and erect boundaries around human actions by placing everything in relation to God. Yes, both Christians and non-Christians can agree on some surface-level criteria to judge narratives such as how well they account for historical events, their simplicity, or their beauty. But these criteria will only matter if the larger poetic by which a narrative is created will receive a hearing. The historical method rejects the Christian poetic and the price it extracts on Christians to gain a hearing is too high.

Tilling has some concerns about my use of the word “public” could use refining and perhaps broadening. I use it to reference the state of academic historical inquiry in the world today. I agree with him in that I don’t want the public space to be naturalistic, but it currently is. The historical method as practiced outside theological circles is intractably naturalistic. No supernatural acts or explanations are allowed. So, I would welcome a wider definition of “public,” but I worry that that desire only comes from the Christian side. Academic historical inquiry is not interested in making such a move. Public history requires a poetic that is explicitly anti-Christian. It requires Christians to set aside their central beliefs in order to play by the required rules.

Another inquiry is whether if I have committed a to quoque fallacy by pointing to the practices of some of my interlocutors and saying those actions demonstrate that their arguments are wrong. Although this may be a logical fallacy, it has real-world weight. For example, if one holds that the environment crisis is the greatest crisis humanity faces and then that same person flies repeatedly all over the world for vacation, the sincerity of that belief come into doubt. Or, if one believes that historical investigation is done according to a certain method, but then one fails to follow that method, then we have to ask why and if there is a problem with the method itself. The ease by which beliefs translate into reality, and how well methods are followed, gives insight into how strongly beliefs are held and how well methods work.

Conclusion

I have not responded to every point Tilling had made, and I am truly thankful for his engagement with my work and the suggestions he has made for paths forward. I hope to follow up on many more of his suggestions in future work. The best way to end this response is to quote from the Conclusion of my book because these words summarize what why my argument is theological and why poetics and narratives matter for how we think about history as Christians.

This book has shown that that an explicitly Christian replacement is needed for the historical method. The patterns it draws between the events of history form a very different picture than the patterns drawn by the Christian hypothesis. Or to return to my earlier analogy, when Christians look up at the stars of the past, one of the pictures we see is a king that revolves around the Polaris-like star Jesus Christ. When the historical method looks at the stars of the past, Jesus’ star does not shine with any particular splendor, and the picture of the king is nowhere to be found. So when Christians speak of history, we should speak about the fire we see in the sky and the beauty of the lines that connect it, not set aside our star and our king so that we can participate in a method that will never allow its practitioners to see either. The cost of such pretending is too high, for eventually the new star-gazer will approach, point to Jesus, and ask, “But what do you see?” And here, hopefully, the answer will come in the form of the Christian story, not scientific neutrality (210-11).

---

[1] As Tilling had pointed out, one book more explicitly theological is Adams, Samuel V. The Reality of God and Historical Method: Apocalyptic Theology in Conversation with N.T. Wright. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015. Another book that offers a theological argument against naturalism in historical investigations is Sarisky, Darren. Reading the Bible Theologically. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

[2] Tilling encourages me to think more about the ontology I am working with in this distinction. I agree more could be said here. In short, although I acknowledge that non-physical things exist, I am making a distinction here between things that exist apart from the human mind and things that exist as constructed by the human mind. At times the boundaries can blur, but surely this distinction has some explanatory power.

Bullet games

I really enjoyed working out 17...Ne4 and spotting the final Kb8!

Closing thoughts on the PSA series, Jon DePue and "penal" problems (8 of 7)

Time to wrap this all up before posting a link to Mike's response video. Andrew Rillera's posts (listed here) were meant to generate discussion about the claims made in Mike Bird's original post, here. I said in the first post, and will repeat here, "Mike’s post is short and not intended as an extended defence of PSA". That is worth bearing in mind. Nonetheless, truth claims were made about Paul's letters and Andrew's posts—anything but short!—are a sustained critique of Mike's exegesis of his own key texts. 

More could be said, of course, but I will merely add two further issues. 

1) Well, the first is not an issue as much as a single video, namely Jon DePue's trinitarian critique of penal substitution. Jon argues that PSA necessarily fractures the homoousion, leading to a functional tritheism and ultimately to an undermining of the centrality of Christ. These are things, to be clear, that we do not want. So watch his video and try to answer a crucial question: does PSA indeed necessarily lead to these ends? If not, why not? If it does, well, time to reject it and return to recapitulation or some other ancient account of the saving significance of Jesus, such as the Apostle Paul's *cheeky grin*! (FYI, I hesitate to speak of "models" given Khaled Anatolios's recent case in Deification through the Cross, which is def. worth checking out). The only other thing worth adding is that Jon has recently rethought the place of the homoousion in light of McCormack's wonderful new book on Christology (and Jon’s got some great videos on that, too!), meaning that he is now less concerned with preserving that concept per se than he used to be. Regardless, the logical problems are still there, as well as the resulting occlusion of Jesus's centrality. 

2) Andrew spent his time critiquing use of the word "substitution". An alternative exegetically based theological critique will take aim at the use of the word "penal".

"Penal" is deployed in atonement theology to bring particular forensic notions into play, namely those that associate justice with the exactment of a penalty, understood in terms of punishment and desert. It is related to the Latin punire to mean the infliction of a penalty, "to cause pain for some offense". Of course, words are flexible little buggers and need to be understood by how they are used, so I take two books from my shelf almost at random to allow defenders of PSA to express the import of "penal". So, as Bruce Demarest explains in The Cross and Salvation (in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series): "Penal substitution indicates that the Messiah died in the sinner's place and took upon himself the sinner's just punishment" (p. 193, italics mine). Or as Douglas Moo recently opines in A Theology of Paul and His Letters, "Christ's death atones because he suffers and dies in the sinner's place. This 'place taking' is then often elaborated in terms of punishment" (393, italics mine). It is worth allowing Moo
more space, here, to elaborate the logic involved, thereby helping us coordinate his account of what is "just" in this scheme: Those "in Christ can be certain of escaping God's wrath on that day because ... it has been fully absorbed by Christ on the cross". He continues: "In the face of human sin and the condemnation under which sinners stand, God has sent Christ to be a full and final sacrifice for sins as a means of 'justifying' believers—putting them in a legal state of righteousness—and remains 'just' while doing so because Christ is our substitute, bearing the full judgment we deserve" (398-99). 

It follows, I think uncontroversially, that "penal" as an adjective here names an attribute of the noun "substitution" to mobilise a particular account of justice, namely a retributive one understood negatively (i.e., as punishment. This is not about positive retribution involving compensation, which is an entirely different matter). It is one in which justice is served by means of the exactment of a penalty understood in terms of deserved punishment. 

Two lines of thought need to be brought to bear in response. First, why must this account of justice be assumed and prioritised? After all, Michael Sandel's Justice: A Reader proffers numerous accounts of justice and not one of them articulates it as negative retribution. So let's not pretend that it is the only option whenever words glossed with "just" or "condemnation" are used. Numerous other forensic notions can be and are deployed, which are specifically non-negative-retributive. (For the record, and here I am glaring at some NT scholars who should know better, questioning this particular negative-retributive account of justice a Marcionite does not make!)

Second, we can build on this insight to offer crucial interpretative aid. For Paul will insist that God's δικαιοσύνη (typical glosses being "righteousness" or "justice")—however we might conceive it—is revealed in the gospel (compare Rom 1:16-17; 3:21-22). Divine "justice" is thus the content of the good news not the problem that the gospel needs to solve. Justice for Paul is, in other words, to be parsed according to a gospel-driven grammar and cannot be projected into Paul's theology willy-nilly because of some pre-conceived and undifferentiated notion. 

This means that, to understand this Rom 1:17 δικαιοσύνη, one needs a broader account of the event of God in Christ, for Paul. Only this would respect the point that God's act in Jesus Christ is the content of God's δικαιοσύνη. As such it is an act of unconditional love and benevolence precisely "while we were still sinners" (Rom 5:8)—not when we had met certain conditions but when we were at our worst, so to speak. This is to say that it does not operate according to the dictates of negative retribution and desert (compare language used by Demarest and Moo above). It is an event of loving solidarity, to the point of death—even death on a cross—for one died, therefore all died (2 Cor 5:14; Phil 2:6-11), and we shall also be raised with him (2 Cor 4:14). It is an act which in resurrection and by the Holy Spirit liberates us from the powers of Sin and Death (Rom 6; Gal 5). This is further evidenced in the way Paul predominantly talks about freedom from enslavement rather than forgiveness from guilt (do a search for the word “forgiveness” in Paul’s letters and compare your result with the number of times, e.g., Luther uses the word [“Vergebung/Verzeihen” if you're really keen] in his commentaries on Paul. It’s a revealing exercise). It is, thus, an event that delivers, pressing us toward forensic liberative notions of justice. At least this would all be a good start in unpacking a Pauline account of justice. 

Defenders of PSA will need to mount a case that God's justice necessarily, in Paul, involves punishment and the causing of pain, and in a way that overtly overrides other central Pauline intuitions (if one wants to say PSA is the central or core of atonement). Good luck with that! 

A little more promising is to claim, if one wants to adopt a kaleidoscope view of atonement models (which is the best a PSA defender can hope for in reading Paul), that such retributive notions can cogently stand alongside Paul's alternative scheme of justice in the gospel, without generating devastating intrinsic, systematic and empirical problems. But this has not been done, to my mind; the compatibility is usually asserted without awareness of the problems generated. In fact, wider analysis of political dimensions (Hauerwas on western justice, Jared Diamond on tribes), the nature and deployment of metaphors in these debates (relating to "payment" and "compensation" working in both positive and negative directions—Lakoff, soon Campbell), and John Wayne masculinity scripts (the warrior who inflicts equal or greater harm in response to harm and distress) are perhaps making the gap between these alternative accounts of justice (negative retributive vs. Paul's gospel-driven account) wider—not more plausible. Further, this strategy would also need to show its concrete relation to the Christ event in general in Paul's theology, and not merely pluck out bits where Paul sounds retributive. In other words, the onus is very much on defenders of the word "penal" to demonstrate the case against considerable exegetical, theological and theoretical pressure. 

"But muh retributive justice is in these wider Bible passages" says someone while stabbing at pages of the NIV. OK, granted, but all manner of different notions of justice can be mobilized by various parts of Scripture, and most involve acts of judgement that do not end in punishment, but rather in the correction, education and redemption of God's people as a whole (a claim that would take me beyond the bounds of this post to defend, would present a positive account of retribution as compensation, and would relate to Revelation, the nature of OT prophecy, and more besides). This imaginary someone has a good instinct, of course. The scopus of Scripture needs to be respected, prayerfully received. But any truly Christian theological account must orientate its reading of the Bible as a whole to the Word of God, namely Jesus Christ (see, e.g., John 5:39-40), which is effectively what Paul insist in Rom 1:17. God's "justice" is revealed in the gospel. This must be our primary and most important orientation otherwise unevangelised notions of justice will determine our core theological axioms in inappropriate ways. And that won't end well. Taken to its worst (yet perhaps most logical) ends, penal substitutionary atonement risks inscribing unevenaglised notions of justice into the heart of the God-human relation. 

This has real world consequences that need to be faced; this is not an exercise in abstractions. At one level it will lead to confused preachers, unsure how to speak of love and justice/holiness "in balance", not only upsetting those who endorse divine simplicity, but also those who do not want to undermine the radical beauty of the Christ-centred good news of Paul with some zero-sum word juggling (e.g., the "God loves you but he is also just" kind of nonsense one often hears in some churches). At another level, once penal notions of justice are inscribed into the gospel, into the heart of core theological truths, we necessarily have a God who can endorse the death penalty. In parts of the world, like Texas or Belarus, this matters a hell of a lot. Our Bible exegesis is a public act with concrete consequences for which we are responsible.

So I question the "penal" part of penal substitutionary atonement. Andrew questions the "substitution" part. What kind of atonement are we left with, then? Well, if you want a positive account of Paul's theology of the cross, you might find this popular level article I wrote a few years ago useful.

Rillera’s Myth Busting Busting: Response to Discussion and a Conclusion (7 of 7)

In response to some social media responses and discussion to these posts on (mainly) Facebook, I asked Andrew to write up some thoughts. There are those who think Andrew is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", and the reason given is something like "because Paul articulates the saving significance of Jesus's death in substitutionary terms earlier in Romans / elsewhere". However, as no texts have yet been referenced by these interlocutors it is difficult for Andrew to respond. Andrew adds that, especially given the 6th post in this series ("Substitutionary Resurrection?"), the onus is arguably now on folks who think there's some "substitutionary" magic bullet—to provide this evidence. Either way, the point of Andrew's posts was to tackle Mike Bird's top three texts, which is really how this mini series of arguments needs to be adjudicated. And we are looking forward to Mike's video response in due time, which I will of course repost here!

But one question, raised by an old University friend of mine, Matthew, deserves a little more discussion, and Andrew, it turns out, had something prepared. So this post will first talk about this proposed correction of Andrew's case before wrapping things up with a conclusion. 

In a—I promise—final post, I will provide a link to an important PSA critique from a trinitarian angle and add one other set of concerns about the word "penal". 

*Hands the microphone back to Andrew Rillera*

Passover

Some have asked about substitution in 1 Cor 5:7 because there Paul says clearly that Jesus is our paschal lamb (pascha). A few things need to be kept in mind here.

Image from https://www.templesolel.com/

For one, as I said in Part 1: Many people are unaware that not all Levitical sacrifices have a kippēr function. The “peace” or “well-being” sacrifices (Lev 3, 7:11–21) do not have an atoning function. Conveniently, it’s pretty easy to know if a sacrifice is atoning or non-atoning: if the laity eat from it, then it cannot be an atoning sacrifice. E.g., we know that the Passover is type of corporate thanksgiving well-being sacrifice because it is eaten by the laity (and has unleavened bread and a one-day expiration date (compare Exod 12 with Lev 7:12, 15).

There are three types of non-atoning sacrifices, lumped into a single broader category called the “well-being” sacrifices (šĕlāmîm). What unites these three are two significant facts. (1) These are the only sacrifices that the offerer eats. And (2) these are all non-atoning sacrifices. If a sacrifice has an atoning function, then the offerer cannot eat from it.

Significantly, while the well-being sacrifices could be offered by individuals whenever they felt like it, there are two important corporate well-being sacrifices: the Passover and the covenant inauguration/renewal (cf. Exod 24:5, 11; Deut 27:7; 2 Chron 15:10–12; 29:31, 35; 30:22–24; 33:16). Paul undeniably associates Jesus with both of these non-atoning sacrifices in 1 Corinthians (Passover in 5:7 and covenant inauguration in 11:25).

What is important for our purposes is that right off the bat we need to exclude 1 Cor 5:7 as talking about “atonement” (kipper) because the Passover is not an atoning sacrifice by definition. But once that is out of the way, what about the notion of “substitution” in general?

If one was inclined to say that it substituted for the firstborn in each household since failure to paint blood on the doorpost would result in the death of the firstborn, then one would also have to say that leaven is substitutionary as well since failure to comply with removing it and not eating it would result in that person’s death also (Exod 12:15, 19). In other words, just because something averts being cut off does not mean it is “substitutionary.” Hypothetically, if the Hebrew family ate a lamb but didn’t remove the leaven the firstborn along with the entire family would perish. So the lamb was not really “substituting” for the firstborn otherwise that would be sufficient to automagically have spared him. The consequences for not partaking of the Passover properly cannot be reduced to a logic of an isolated discrete instance of the lamb substituting for the firstborn. The feast needs to be understood as a whole.

Moreover, the Torah already tells us who the substitute for Israel’s firstborns are: The Levites (Num 8). It was not as if the firstborn of every household was threatened every year with death unless as substitute was offered in its place on Passover. The firstborn aspect of the first Passover was dealt with in Exod 13 immediately after the instructions in Exod 12. Here the firstborn aspect takes the form of redemption, which eventually gets taken up in Numbers 8 with the dedication of the Levites for tabernacle service in place of the firstborns. So the firstborn aspect of the first Passover is literally never part of any subsequent Passovers. To all of a sudden think Paul calling Jesus the Passover in 1 Cor 5:7 is him talking about Jesus as a substitute for all humanity (so I guess “firstborn” has now lost all meaning if it applies to…everyone??) strains credulity.

In any case, the point of the Passover celebration was upon preservation, deliverance, and formation into a covenant people, not some substitutionary moment of atonement. To conceptualize the Passover with substitution would be to miss the entire narrative thrust of both the historical moment and its continued remembrance in celebration each year afterwards, especially after the exile. In its first instance, the Passover lamb was a protective shield of sorts in order to preserve the whole people of Israel for their coming liberation from Egyptian slavery (12:13, 23–27, 31–32, 42, 51). Afterwards, it was the cultic marker of the preservation of Israel in order for them to be made into a kingdom of priests (12:14, 17, 24–27, 42; cf. Exod 19:4–6).

When Paul refers to Jesus as the Passover sacrifice in 1 Cor 5:7 it is pretty easy to rule out that he is conceptualizing this has a substitution that otherwise should have been the Corinthians’ deaths. The point in this passage is about the necessity for the community to be pure (eilikrineia) and true (alētheia) (5:8); free from immorality and every kind of wickedness (5:1, 8–11). This is why they should “remove the wicked person from among [themselves]” (5:13)—the person sleeping with his step-mother (5:1).

If Paul thought of Jesus as a substitute for people’s sins, then the solution would be to reiterate that nothing ought to happen to this sinner because Jesus’s took his punishment instead of him. But this is exactly not what Paul writes. Indeed, Paul’s instructions to expel this immoral person are for the purpose of destroying this person’s flesh (5:5a). True, this has the further purpose of saving his spirit (5:5b), but importantly, it is the destruction of his flesh that leads to the salvation of his spirit not, as we would expect with a substitutionary understanding of Jesus’s death, the destruction of Jesus’s flesh in his place.

Crucially, Paul brings in Jesus only in order to justify why the community ought to expel this sinner from among them. That is, conceptualizing Jesus’s death as a Passover sacrifice serves Paul’s point of the need to excommunicate the immoral person. The rhetorical move is anything but talking about Jesus as the substitute for an immoral person.

Just like the Passover celebrated the preservation, deliverance, and formation of Israel into a covenant people, Paul says that Christ’s death signals their deliverance (from every kind of immorality and wickedness in its immediate context) and formation as an unleavened community that is pure and true.

Paul’s logic here runs this way: since Jesus is our Passover, then we have an obligation to “celebrate” this fact by removing all leaven, which Paul midrashically interprets as immorality and wickedness, from our community that has been brought into existence by this Passover and therefore, we need to remove this immoral person. The point, then, about using the image of Passover is to say that Jesus has delivered and formed a pure community, therefore we are under obligation to keep it pure and free from immorality. There is nothing substitutionary going on.

No matter which way one slices it, Paul is not operating with a notion of substitution in either 5:7 or 11:25. In between these passages in 1 Cor, Paul asks, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing [koinōnia] in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing [koinōnia] in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake [metechō] of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners [koinōnia] in the altar?” (1 Cor 10:16–18).

Here we get a clear statement that Paul is working within the logic of the non-atoning well-being sacrifices, of which Passover is a special corporate instance. First, this cannot be about substitution by definition, because it is all about “sharing” (koinonia) (1 Cor 10:16, 18, 20) and “partaking” (metechō) (10:17, 21) in the offering and thereby having fellowship with God (see part 5 for the definition used). Second, not only is it explicitly and undoubtedly about “participation,” but this also means Paul cannot be conceptualizing Jesus’s death as an “atoning” (kipper) sacrifice since these cannot be eaten by the offerer. And if there was any doubt about this, he actually quotes from Exod 32:6 earlier in 1 Cor 10:7, which is about the Israelites eating well-being sacrifices before the Golden Calf, whom they call YHWH, the LORD.

According to Paul, it is by partaking of the well-being offering that is Jesus’s body that we become made participants in his broken body and shed blood and made members of the new covenant (1 Cor 10:16–18; 11:23–25). It is by this that we become, “living sacrifices” “living well-being” sacrifices ourselves (cf. Rom 12:1). This is why Paul calls himself a drink offering, which accompanied the well–being sacrificial feast (Phil 2:17). And he says the Philippians’s gift can be thought of the smoke of the well-being sacrifices that pleases God (4:18).

So I think the well-being sacrifices are the key to understanding the way Paul conceives of the relationship between Jesus and the Church, which Paul calls Jesus’s body (1 Cor 12). The well-being sacrifices allow Paul a way to make sense of a believer’s very real participation and union with Jesus’s death (and resurrection) because these are the only sacrifices the offerer has a share in themselves. So it makes perfect sense that well-being sacrifices are used to make sense of Jesus’s death for a movement that saw itself as the Body of the Crucified Lord and called to share in his sufferings as well. If Jesus is a well-being sacrifice and we are his body and we sacrificially partake of his body and blood, then this means we become a collective “living well-being sacrifice” as a new covenant people united to the final Passover lamb.

Conclusion (Again)

Paul’s basic narrative logic of salvation seems to be this: (1) Disobedience/sin is ubiquitous in human beings. (2) This causes all sorts of problems for humanity and the biggest problem is that all this sin/disobedience results in death. (3) Jesus was truly human in every way and fully obedient, died, and was resurrected from the dead. (4) The resurrection means Jesus has defeated death. (5) Therefore, if Jesus defeated the ultimate result of sin/disobedience, then he in fact defeated sin/disobedience itself. (6) Therefore, if one is united with Jesus’s death (co-crucifixion), then one can walk in the newness of life—a life of obedience like his—and be assured of one’s own resurrection as well. Everything Paul says on the topic of salvation either illustrates, explicates in further detail, or provides the warrants for these points.

The remedy for Sin/sins according to Paul is deliverance and rescue. And this is because Paul conceptualizes Sin as a personified power and agent that deceives, enslaves, and kills, which leads people to commit sins, and so Sin needs to be conquered, subdued, and condemned. Sin for Paul is not conceptualized as a contamination that needs to be disinfected from holy objects through cultic atonement. Other NT authors such as 1 John and Hebrews go this route, but there is no evidence Paul himself does. Paul is using another conceptual framework than kipper and this framework is explicitly about union and participation.

At no point would substitution (penal or otherwise) properly conceptualize what Paul thinks is going on. If we are determined to pick a word to conceptualize Paul’s thought, then Irenaeus’s use of the Pauline word “recapitulation” would be it (see anakephalaioō in Eph 1:10). This whole thing is not “place taking” (substitution), but rather “place sharing” (solidarity, union, participation): The Son of God first shared and participated in the cursed condition of humanity albeit fully obedient (incarnation), delivered it from that condition (resurrection), and then and only then can anyone now share and participate in his divine condition (justification, sanctification) since he is the new “head” of humanity.

Rillera’s Myth Busting Busting: Substitutionary Resurrection? (6 of 7)

(Your mum's resurrection body)

(By Andrew Rillera - though he distances himself from the added artwork and captions)

Finally, it’s important to see how it is the resurrection of Jesus that bears a lot of the soteriological significance—at least for Paul. But it only makes sense as a tandem with the crucifixion. The logic in Paul is never “Jesus died so that neither I nor you have to” but rather, “Jesus died and that allows for us to share in that same death so that his life might also be made known in our bodies and to others” (cf. 2 Cor 4:7–12; 5:14–15). In this participatory flow of thought, it would be rather jarring and incomprehensible for Paul to all of sudden turn as say: “Actually, never mind the whole thing about sharing in Jesus’s death; he died as your substitute.”

For those who insist that the phrase hyper hēmōn (“for us”) is inherently substitutionary in places like 2 Cor 5:21 they need only to read a few sentences earlier where Paul has already ruled out that connotation of the phrase in 5:15: “And he died hyper all, so that those living might no longer be living for themselves, but to the one who died and was raised hyper them.” If hyper is inherently about substitution, then this means that Jesus’s resurrection is substitutionary as well which of necessity means no one will ever be raised since Jesus was our substitutionary resurrection. He is resurrected so that no one else has to be. This, of course, is unthinkable.

Here for Paul hyper means “for the sake of” or “for the benefit of” and does not carry substitutionary overtones, but rather is grounded in his stubborn participatory logic. (Fn. If hyper is inherently substitutionary, then several passages that use the word become unintelligible: e.g., Acts 9:16; 15:26; 21:13; Col 1:24; Col 2:1: Mark 9:40; John 6:51; 13:37; 17:19; Heb 6:19-20 compared with 10:19, 22). Both Jesus’s death and resurrection are hyper pantōn/autōn (5:15). If there was a word to conceptualize this, it would not be substitution. The phrase “inclusive participatory representation” might be good or the word “recapitulation” that Irenaeus was so fond of (see its use in Eph 1:10). For Paul, both Jesus’s death and resurrection benefit “all/them/us” precisely because it means that human beings participate in his very death and resurrection.

Similarly then, when Christ was “made sin” or “became a curse” hyper hēmōn (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13), Paul is not inserting a diametrically opposed logic—a logic of substitution—into his participatory mode of thinking and explicating the meaning of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Gathercole’s rather astute definition of substitution rightly recognizes how incompatible each line of reasoning is (see part 5 for a discussion of Gathercole's definition). Rather, Paul is only talking about how Christ’s full participation in the sinful and cursed conditions of humanity is actually a benefit for humanity. Similar to how both Jesus’s death and resurrection are hyper pantōn/autōn (2 Cor 5:15) because human beings are supposed to participate in them, Jesus’s coming under sin and curse hyper hēmōn is the first logical step in Paul’s thinking: Human beings can participate in Christ because he first participated in us by coming under sin and curse as we were; Christ did all of these things for our benefit. In all cases, then, hyper is Paul’s means of communicating both benefit for humanity and the solidarity and participation between both Christ and humanity.

Therefore, when Christ was “made sin” or “became a curse” hyper hēmōn (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13), he was not doing something substitutionary because these statements are about the whole incarnation whereby Jesus was simply entering into what human beings already were; he is therefore not taking upon himself something that human beings never experienced, should have experienced, but now will not have to. These statements are about Jesus fully sharing in the already present conditions of humanity. It was his perfect obedience in these conditions and resurrection from out of these conditions that allows this incarnation to be for the benefit (hyper) of all “in him” (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13) since they are freed from sin and curse insofar as they are united with him in his death and resurrection.

Again, if Jesus’s resurrection “on our behalf” (2 Cor 5:15) isn’t substitutionary—no one says, “Jesus’s substitutionary resurrection”—then it makes no sense to think his death is substitutionary. For, if his death is substitutionary, then so is his resurrection.

The fact that the resurrection is the basis for “dealing with sins” is made clear in 1 Cor 15:17: “If Christ has not been raised…you are still in your sins.” If it was Jesus’s death alone that dealt with sins in some substitutionary way, then the consequence of Jesus not resurrecting would not be that humans are still in their sins (1 Cor 15:17). It would be: Well, your sins are dealt with (forgiven, cleansed, whatever), but we still do not know what is going to happen for sure after your body perishes (but most of us Jews believe in a general resurrection of the dead so let us hope for that—let’s just be glad we do not have to worry about being judged for our sins when we die).

Paul is consistent with this emphasis upon Jesus’s resurrection as dealing with sins in Romans 4. First, Paul equates justification with forgiveness in Rom 4:6–7 in his only use of aphiēmi (“forgiveness”) in his (undisputed) letters denoting divine forgiveness of sins (and he is quoting its use in Ps 32:1). Second, in 4:25 he says that Jesus “was raised on account of our justification” immediately after saying “he was delivered over on account of our transgressions.” Thus, as with 1 Cor 15:3, 17, it is actually the resurrection that effects “dealing with sins.” If there is no resurrection, then according to Paul one is not justified/forgiven (Rom 4:6–7, 25b) and they are still in their sins (1 Cor 15:7). Therefore, in the same way that Jesus’s resurrection is for others, and no one ever attempts to conceptualize it as a substitution (cf. 2 Cor 5:15), I do not think Paul is conceptualizing Jesus’s death as a substitution in 1 Cor 15 (or Rom 4:25a) either. The two go together hand in hand. The death and resurrection of Jesus are for others only to the extent that others are joined with them according to Paul (1 Cor 15:22; Rom 6:3–8).

We need, then, to find an adequate substitute for the word “substitutionary.” Using “atonement” in a broader sense than sacrificial kippēr, what we have throughout the NT is a “participatory atonement” or “cursed solidarity atonement” theology.

Rillera’s Myth Busting Busting: Substitution? (5 of 7)

(by Andrew Rillera)

The inadequacies of the concept of “substitution” to construe the saving uniqueness of Jesus

Some modern proponents of PSA are starting to offer phrases and definitions of substitution that ring to my hears as unintelligible phrases that evacuate the word “substitution” from all common sense meaning. As much as I disagree with Gathercole, his definition of substitution is the most sane one out there. But some are bending around Gathercole’s precise definition of “substitution” just so that they can retain the word “substitution” but offer a view that is about anything but “substitution.” For example, you’ll hear substitution defined as “inclusive place taking.” Maybe I’m alone, but “inclusive place taking” sounds like trying to have a non-substitutionary definition of “substitution” just to say it’s still “substitutionary.” What’s so important about the word “substitution” that we have to create these odd phrases when what we are conveying is something other than the normal use for the words “substitution” and “substitute”? As I said above, surgeons do things for our benefit that we can’t do for ourselves, but if someone said “I’m so thankful for my substitutionary surgeon!” we would think they are talking about how another surgeon took the place of their original surgeon. To later find out that they were meaning to talk about the saving and healing act of surgery itself, we would think that person is confused about how to use the “substitution” word group.

Professor Simon Gathercole

Maybe Gathercole and I have too elementary a notion of substitution. But substitution only gets complicated when wielded by theologians and exegetes trying to salvage this word as an adequate descriptor of what the NT authors are communicating. In regular use, substitution means X instead of Y. Soy milk instead of cow’s milk. This player instead of that player. I don’t see this logic being applied to Jesus’s death in the NT. It’s always: he died so that we can share in his sufferings; he died so that we can die with him and like him; he died and was raised so that we can die and be raised with him; he broke Sin’s reign in and over the flesh so that we can refuse to let Sin reign over our mortal bodies by the power of his Spirit living within us; etc.

It is solidarity and participation all the way down. For instance, how is Jesus’s death “substitutionary” according to Mark if he says all his disciples must also pick up their own crosses and follow him to be crucified (Mark 8:34–35; 10:38–39)? A substitution means person A does something so person B doesn’t have to. When you substitute in soy milk in your latte, you don’t also mean that you want the cow’s milk sharing in the latte as well. This is why “substitute” is appropriate here. Something is replacing something else. But Jesus seems to think that he is just going ahead of his disciples into a fate that they will also have to share in. As he tells James and John as well as the rest, they too will have to be baptized with the same baptism and drink from the same cup as he has (Mark 10:38–39; cf. Matt 20:22–23). If this was “substitutionary,” then this would only be Jesus’s baptism and only Jesus’s cup. But this is clearly not the case.

All disciples are called to share in Jesus’s baptism and cup. So using “substitution” to summarize what is taking place here actually prevents us from seeing what Jesus is teaching. To go back to the latte metaphor, if someone wanted both soy and cow milk in their latte no cashier would use “substitute” to convey to the barista what the customer wanted because that word would actually obscure and confuse what the order was. The customer does not want a substitute; they want both soy milk and cow’s milk to have a share in the latte. Likewise, while not a perfect one-to-one corresponding metaphor with lattes, when we hear what Jesus is actually claiming and teaching in the Gospels, we shouldn’t use “substitute” to convey what Jesus actually wanted to have happen. He was expecting co-crucifixion with his followers and, while not happening during Jesus’s actual crucifixion, this—co-crucifixion—remained the ever present expectation and way of talking about Christian discipleship (Gal 2:20; 6:14; Rom 6:3–8; Phil 3:10–11; 2 Cor 4:10–11; Col 1:24; 2:12; 3:1, 3–4; 1 John 2:6, 3:16–18; 1 Pet 2:21). “Substitution” logically and necessarily resists this framing of Christian life.

Jesus’s taking on sinful flesh (Rom 8:3) and experiencing the curse of the covenant (Gal 3-4) is an act of solidarity and union—“cursed solidarity” if you like. No substitution detected that I can see. It’s only a prior commitment to PSA that shoehorns that concept of “substitution” into these acts of divine solidarity.

To return to the surgeon analogy, someone might respond that a key difference with Jesus and the surgeon is that the surgeon isn’t performing a task that the patient is expected to do for themselves whereas Jesus is doing just that. But to this I say: Where in the Torah, prophets, or apostolic writings are sinners ever expected to give themselves new hearts? And where in those Scriptures are sinners presented as not already existing under/experiencing the curses? Sounds like if we were going to come up with an analogy for the type of resolution needed, we might say that they need a divine surgeon to heal what they are incapable of healing themselves. So my above comments about surgery would appear to still hold up.

I want to be clear that I uphold the uniqueness of Jesus’s saving act, but I think “substitution” is a wrongheaded and potentially misleading term to conceptualize what is happening. Let’s use another analogy.

Based on a true story: If my kids are trapped to their knees in quicksand and I get in there and get muddy to rescue them, how do you conceptualize what I just did? What do you call me? I know one thing: you don’t call me a “substitute.” Replace “quicksand” with “curse” or “Sin and Death” and me with Jesus and you have Paul’s narrative of divine deliverance. “Substitution” doesn’t accurately conceptualize what’s happening. “Solidarity” is more on target.

Solidarity, participation, union, co-crucifixion are by definition non-substitutionary concepts. There’s a double solidarity/participation going on. Jesus first participated in the curse and death of human existence so that then we can participate in a very real way in his death as well as his resurrection. It’s solidarity all the way down.

I don’t know why Christians insist on a word that makes conformity to the cruciform image of Christ incoherent. If Jesus is my substitute why do I need to take up a cross? Why do I need to have fellowship with his sufferings? Why do I need to be co-crucified?

Since we don’t conceptualize many people who perform analogous acts of deliverance, rescue, or healing as “substitutes” (surgeons, rescuers, etc.), then I don’t see the need to do that for Jesus apart from an a priori problematic assumption about what salvation “must entail.” All I know is that whatever Jesus did, the overwhelming apostolic witness is that I’m called to share and participate in it. “Substitute” is a theologically impoverished way at trying to sum that up. Jesus is our deliverer and healer. He is not our substitute.

Rillera’s Myth Busting Busting: 1 Peter 2:24 (4 of 7)

(by Andrew Rillera)

Here we read, “‘he [Jesus] himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” As Bird observes, Peter is quoting from Isaiah 53:4–5 (the “Suffering Servant” passages) here. Again, what many simply refer to as “substitutionary” turns out on closer examination to really be “solidarity.”

It is less than clear that any use of Isaiah 53 automatically means the author is thinking of the concept of substitution because we have evidence of it being used in a non-substitutionary manner. Matthew, for instance, quotes from Isaiah 53 to explain Jesus’s healing and exorcism ministry (Matt 8:16–17). When Jesus heals or casts out a demon no one conceptualizes that event with the word substitution. Yes, Jesus is doing something for someone else that they cannot do for themselves, but it is obviously not fitting to conceptualize this with substitution. Surgeons do things for patients they cannot do for themselves, but no one ever says, “Thank God for my substitutionary surgeon,” unless they mean that their original scheduled surgeon couldn’t perform the operation for whatever reason and another surgeon had to take their place. This is actually the form of substitution operative in Rom 8:3 discussed above. The “Law” was the first scheduled surgeon, but it couldn’t accomplish one of its goals so God sent Jesus to fulfil that particular goal instead. But Jesus is not substituting for human beings there.

In any case, just because someone may employ Isaiah 53 does not automatically equate to employing the notion of substitution. What is necessary is to see how that author goes on to make use of that materiel and then decide if substitution/replacement best conceptualizes what that author is getting at since perhaps representation or solidarity might better capture and conceptualize the author’s point.

I think it is fairly obvious that Peter views Jesus as the “Suffering Servant” par excellence, but what prevents me from categorizing this as a “substitution” is that he simultaneously says we are called to the same servant lifestyle just as 1 Pet 2:21 explicitly says. Substitution, by definition, precludes any sort of participation as Simon Gathercole argues in Defending Substitution. Gathercole writes: “I am defining substitutionary atonement for the present purposes as Christ’s death in our place, instead of us. The ‘instead of us’ clarifies the point that ‘in our place’ does not, in substitution at least, mean ‘in our place with us’” (15; his emphasis). He later employs the word “replacement” (20) which makes clear that substitution is to be distinguished from representation even if it may be “possible that one can find an even more substitutionary sort of representation” (20n14). In other words, even if “some might argue that substitution is rooted in representation” (111), representation and substitution are to remain logically distinct from one another in the same way rectangles and squares are. A square may be a rectangle, but not all rectangles are squares; likewise, substitution may be a type of representation, but not all types of representation are substitutionary. This precise definition of substitution is important for the purposes of the present discussion and I will return in a later part to discuss more problems with the term “substitution.”

For now, though it is obvious so it seems superfluous to point it out, we need to recognize that the notion of participation and solidary with Jesus as a “pattern” or “example” for Christians to conform to in 2:21 is what immediately precedes and thus informs what comes after when Peter quotes from Isaiah 53 in 2:24. Jesus as the Servant is used to say that now we have a clearer paradigm for how we ought to likewise be servants as well. Jesus isn’t a substitute here on Gathercole’s definition, because what he is doing is not “instead of us” or “in our place” so that we are excluded from doing whatever it is Jesus did as our substitute. Rather, Jesus, and Jesus’s death in particular is held up as a model to be imitated. Whatever that is, “substitute” does not capture what Peter is talking about.

In fact, Clement of Rome in the later first-early second century AD quotes all of Isaiah 53 with reference to Jesus to make this very same point (1 Clement 16:3–16). That is, Clement reads Isaiah 53 in light of Jesus not to make some point about substitution, but to discern the following lesson: “You see, dear friends, the kind of pattern (hypogrammos) that has been given to us; for if the Lord so humbled himself, what should we do, who through him have come under the yoke of his grace? (1 Clement 16:17; Holmes translation). This word for “pattern” (hypogrammos) is the same word used in 1 Pet 2:21 to introduce the use of Isaiah 53 with reference to Jesus and the ethical claims that that has on Christ followers. Like 1 Peter, Clement introduces the quote from Isaiah 53 with an appeal to imitate Jesus: “For Christ is with those who are humble, not with those who exalt themselves over his flock. The majestic sceptre of God, our Lord Christ Jesus, did not come with the pomp of arrogance or pride (though he could have done so), but in humility, just as the Holy Spirit spoke concerning him.” These bookends to quoting Isaiah 53 demonstrate how shallow and insufficient the word “substitution” is to convey the concept being deployed here. The notion is solidarity all the way down. Jesus partook in the sufferings of our condition in order to heal us so that we might be able to do likewise.

1 Peter says that Jesus dies as an “example (hypogrammos) so that you should follow his steps” (2:21; cf. 4:1). In short, Jesus’s death is a participatory reality; it is something we are called to follow and share in experientially ourselves. The logic is not: Jesus died so I don’t have to. Rather it is: Jesus died (redeeming us from slavery and forming us into a kingdom of priests in 2:5, 9) so that we, together, can follow in his steps and die with him and like him; the just for the unjust (3:18) and trusting in God who judges justly (2:23; 4:19). This is what it means to “suffer…for being a ‘Christian’” (4:15–16). It doesn’t particularly matter why a Christian is suffering or being persecuted; it only matters that they bear the injustice of the world in a Christlike manner.

Again, Jesus’s death is opening up a participatory reality. Yes, Peter says Jesus dies “the just for the unjust” (3:18) but that beneficiary “for” is not as a substitutionary benefit, but is rather a means of opening up the possibility for shared participation in Jesus’s death. The death of Jesus makes it so that we are no longer “unjust,” but rather “just”/“righteous” (same Greek word, 2:24) and this is how we can now follow the example of Jesus’s death as we (now being made “just”) can suffer or die at the hands of the “unjust” (i.e., “suffer for doing what it right” in 3:17).

Also, Jesus’s “bearing our sins” in 1 Pet 2:24 more than likely doesn’t mean “atonement” (kippēr). Rather, bearing our sins means, as Peter goes on to make plain, Jesus handled well being treated unjustly. He responded justly to the injustice and to the sins he suffered (2:23). Then, Peter says that Jesus deals with our inclination to sin and thus we are now able to live righteously/justly (2:24). Atonement is about purging holy objects in the temple, but what Peter is talking about here is healing us of our proclivity to sin/live unjustly and thus enable us to live justly/righteously and follow Jesus’s cruciform example in suffering the injustices of others, which means bearing their sins, bearing their burdens (3:16-18; 4:19 compare w/ 2:23). Even if we want to say that Peter is making a similar move to what Hebrews makes regarding atonement and makes it mean purging humans (I’m not convinced, but this is a possible understanding), what we nevertheless have in 1 Peter (and Revelation 14:5, which quotes from the same bit of Isaiah 53 that Peter does) is a clear application of the theme of “bore our sins” from Isaiah 53 being used to support the theme of participation/union whereby we can now “bear” the sins of others against us in a Christlike/cruciform manner by his power and life within us. That is, at the end of the day, both texts which quote from Isaiah 53 apply it as the pattern/example all Christians are called to imitate/follow since Jesus is the preeminent “Servant.” This is all about solidarity and union with Jesus; not substitution.

Rillera’s Myth Busting Busting: Galatians 3:13-14 (3 of 7)

(By Andrew Rillera)

Here we read: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” To this Bird concludes, “The only explanation is that the Messiah had willingly taken on himself the dreaded curse that rightly belonged to others. Despite some protests to the contrary, I cannot imagine a clearer affirmation of penal substitutionary atonement.”

I’ll make my job harder and bring up that a few scholars such as Stephan Finlan have suggested that Paul is also evoking the scapegoat ritual on the Day of Atonement here. So not only do we seem to have Paul talking about substitution, he may be alluding to the Day of Atonement. So all the terms in PSA are at stake here, but only the “P” with sufficient covenantal nuance remains standing upon a closer examination (Editor's comment: See the final post for Chris Tilling’s qualification of even this).

Three observations will suffice in response to the ostensible Atonement allusions. 1) The scapegoat is not about curse transmission. Curses are not placed on the goat—the word does not appear in this ritual—but rather Israel’s ritual contaminations of “iniquities and transgressions” are placed on the goat (Lev 16:21–22). The Day of Decontamination is a disinfecting ritual that begins in the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the tabernacle. Once the purgation blood disinfects that area, the High Priest then moves to the Holy Place and decontaminates the curtain and the incense altar, then he proceeds to the outer altar. Once these are all purged, then he sends the scapegoat to the wilderness as it is ritually loaded with all the sin and impurity contamination of the people that was just removed from each of the preceding sancta. Liane Feldman likens this process to a person who is sweeping a house where one starts all the way in the back and works the dirt towards the front and eventually sweeps it all out the door. The scapegoat is the dust pan that is the vehicle by which the dust/contamination is carried away from the Lord’s presence.

2) Daniel Streett has argued in his article in the Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters, “Cursed by God? Galatians 3:13, Social Status, and Atonement Theory in the Context of Early Jewish Readings of Deuteronomy 21:23,” against readings like Finlan’s that think this is about the Day of Atonement or the scapegoat ritual more specifically. This is because “becoming a curse” is used several times in places like Jeremiah to simply talk about becoming an object of derision, reproach, and scorn and has nothing to do with curse transmission or anything like “sin riddance” (cf. Jer 24:9 [katara LXX]; 29:18 [verse not in LXX]; 42:18 [ara in LXX, 49:18]; 44:12 [katara in LXX, 51:12]).

Before getting into how it is that Jesus has “redeemed” (exagorazō) those under the curse of the Law, it needs to be pointed out that all Paul seems to be getting at with his use of curse language is that Jesus shared in the same condition plaguing those now under the curse of the law. This is the language of solidarity, not substitution. Like Jeremiah who talks about those experiencing the curse of the covenant as “becoming a curse,” so too Paul is only saying that Jesus went so far as to become an object of reproach and scorn by being crucified in order to liberate his people. Paul is saying that Jesus underwent solidarity with the plight of Israel. This is akin to the prophets like Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel being hauled off into exile, that is, experiencing the curse of the covenant along with the whole people even though they themselves were righteous. But never does “become a curse” mean that curses are being draw away from others and onto something/one else.

3) As it is, the scapegoat ritual is apotropaic and preemptive. It is meant to “ward off” dire conditions that would threaten the community; not mitigate them once already present. Meaning, the Day of Atonement only has a function when there is a sanctuary to be purged in order to ward off the threat of divine abandonment, but it can only do this for sins that can be purged from the sanctuary—for many sins such as murder, sexual immorality, and idolatry, the only remedy is exile because these sins pollute the land, but atoning sacrifices can only purge the sanctuary. The Day of Atonement can do nothing for these types of sins. Once the divine presence leaves, it’s too late and no amount of purging sacrifices or scapegoating will bring it back. This is why Ezekiel only envisions a divine washing and resurrection (Ezek 36:25), not a Day of Atonement, to end the covenant curse of exile.

So whatever Paul means, it seems to have nothing to do with the Day of Atonement. But how is Paul saying then that Jesus “redeemed” us?

First Paul says that those “of the works of the Torah are under a curse” and then quotes the covenant curse from Deut 27:26 (Gal 3:10). Then Paul says that Christ likewise came under the covenant curse from Deuteronomy by quoting from Deut 21:23 as proof that he died a paradigmatically cursed death (Gal 3:13). Thus, Paul is at pains to communicate the simple point, not that sin or curse was transmitted to Jesus at the cross, but that God’s own Son participated fully in Israel’s cursed condition his entire life. Since all those “of the works of the Torah are under a curse” (3:10) and God’s Son was “born under the Law” (4:4), then Paul understands all of Jesus’s life from birth to death (hung upon a tree) as characterized by the curse of the Law that he thinks all Israel is living under. (Paul seems to believe that Israel has remained under the curse of the Law ever since Jeremiah—i.e., Israel was “still in exile” as certain NT scholars are fond of saying.)

The curse is not transmitted to him as sin is transmitted to a scapegoat; rather, Jesus is simply born a Jew, “born under the Law,” during a time in Israel’s history where the curses promised in Deuteronomy and prophesied about in Jeremiah are the lived reality for all, but also that Jesus’s death functions as a sort of “poster child” for Israel’s condition. This is not about substitution, but rather seems to be better conceptualized as “(covenantal) cursed solidarity.”

If this is the case, that Paul is communicating Jesus’s full participation in the negative conditions of Israel, then as Morna D. Hooker has asked, “But if Christ is identified with man’s condition, how do the conclusions follow? How are the Jews set free from the curse of the law, and how does the blessing come to the Gentiles?” (“Interchange in Christ,” 15). She goes on to observe that “underlying this there is an important assumption” (15); namely, “the resurrection” (16). Even though the resurrection is not mentioned explicitly it has to be in view even if it remains implicit (cf. Gal 1:16; 2:20). The resurrection is the only way Paul’s conclusions can follow. Paul says that “the blessing” (opposite of curse) comes “in Christ Jesus” (3:14) and this can only be because in Jesus’s resurrection the opposite of the curse he was living under (and died under) has occurred; the curse has been overturned in his resurrection. This point about the resurrection is made explicit in Rom 4:25 where Paul says that Jesus was raised for our justification, the very concern of Gal 3:11 (cf. 2:16–17).

The fact that it is Jesus’s resurrected life that breaks the curse poses significant problems for any attempts to push the scapegoat image through. The blessing comes not by forever banishing a once pure victim that has had a curse unloaded onto it (indeed, the scapegoat in Lev 16 doesn’t even bear a “curse”), but rather by the one who overrules and annuls the curse by being raised up (cf. 1:15–16; 2:20) after living and dying under the curse (3:13). Put another way, the curse is dealt with by construing it as a judicial sentence (hence the dikaioō language) and then reversing that judicial sentence in Jesus’s resurrection life. Paul gives no hint that the curse has been permanently carried away by banishing a living creature, which would be essential if the predicate “scapegoat” is to be remotely intelligible. By living and dying under the curse of the covenant, Jesus’s resurrection thus redeems (exagorazō) all those living under the curse since it means that the curse does not have the final word; the blessing of resurrection does.