Chalke Schlock and the Penal Substitution

Penal Substitution, Expiation, and Propitiation

We're gonna pray and then we are going to get started Lord Jesus as we open up your word and consider the atonement and consider the sacrifice of Christ for our sins on the cross and the attacks that are Being spoken against it.

So blasphemously we pray that through your Holy Spirit We may rightly understand believe confess and walk and do according to what you have revealed in your Holy Word. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Okay.

The best way I can put it is I hope you are sitting down. The reason why I hope you are sitting down is due to the fact that What you are going to hear is probably some of the most egregious blasphemy.

I've heard in a while.

And.

You know, so you keep that in mind. Let's see. Nicole has her hand raised. Okay. Yeah, we haven't even started the questions are coming in. Bruce Burns is in the house and and Nicole beat Beat him to it.

All right, that's different. Okay, so I see what's going on here. Josh and Nikki are driving. So, oh man, please don't crash that vehicle. Okay, so let's take a look and hang on a second here. I'll check the chat just in case I'm missing anything.

Oh, she says that was a mistake. Oh good. Okay, that's. That's that's a that's a fine that's a fine thing to confess. Okay. So what we're gonna do. We're gonna start with a blasphemous video and I need to make sure that everybody can hear this.

This is a guy who is You know quite the rave in the United Kingdom. His name is Stephen Chalk and This is from one of his chalk talks. Let me see if I can if y 'all can hear this. Hang on a second here.

Well, there's no sound yet. Don't harm yourself Bruce don't harm yourself. Does anyone already notice the the issue here we've got a problem. Yes, Bruce.

Well, we know this yeah.

Okay. Okay now. Yeah, so when we parents what are we being loving when we discipline our children for doing wrong? Apparently not, right? Okay, apparently not. So here's here's part of the issue and I'll kind of explain this so that you understand how this particular game is played.

Which biblical text is he preaching from? None, he's taken a verse out of context from the epistle of 1st. John. God is love okay, and He's now using that to clobber and obliterate all other passages in Scripture.

He's using it as like the definitive text and anything that doesn't agree with his understanding of God is love. Has to be wrong in a previous video. I and the one that I did on how progressives use The the law of retribution the lex talionis As a as a way to obliterate scripture he for real this fellow claims that Moses put words in God's mouth.

That what we have in the Old Testament is not the Bible isn't the Word of God it might contain parts of it, but that Moses put words in God's mouth and and so this is a fellow who is Basically picking and choosing those passages that he wants to follow and so I would argue that the the text that he is preaching from we're gonna call it the book of first opinions and It's his opinions and his Misunderstandings and his rhetoric that are the problem not scripture and then we'll take a look at some clear text along these lines.

So already you can kind of get the idea. There's there's a problem here. Let me back it up just a little bit so we can hear this blasphemy again.

Many if not, most Christians learn to just live with this unthought-through Dichotomy on one hand. They believe in God's grace and goodness. But on the other that one of the central acts of their faith Jesus death on the cross is bound up in God's wrath and need for appeasement.

However, for their friends and for the rest of the world, it's all just a massive contradiction. It's the elephant in the room. If it's true that God's anger could only be satisfied through the death of Jesus Then in fact the God of the Bible isn't unique at all.

Instead his thirst for blood is no different from that of countless other gods of the ancient world. Isn't God who needs a bloody human sacrifice on a cross in order to forgive others any different from a God who requires.

The virgins have to be sacrificed on the slopes of an angry volcano. That's threatening to erupt. And more than that if this is what Jesus death on the cross was all about Then God it turns out is a slave to his own anger.

I.

Yes.

No.

That's the thing He doesn't give us any biblical texts. So when you run across somebody who believes these things and believe me when I tell you that this is a view that is pervasive. Among postmodern progressives is they absolutely loathe and abhor the doctrine that Christ Suffered our punishment in our place.

This isn't known as Christ vicarious suffering or also the doctrine called penal substitution and you're going to note that there are entire congregations who bought into this this type of rhetoric and.

They.

For real, they're slandering God notice how he's misrepresented God with his own opinions. And these are what we call in postmodern terms deconstructing questions but again The job of a pastor is to preach the word and so the error doesn't lie with God the error lies with this man.

Again, he's preaching from the book of first opinions. And so we need to take a little bit of a look and understand then. What does scripture teach in regard to the concept of blood guiltiness as it relates to sin?

This was the whole focus of the sermon today and then we're going to note then that as English speakers and people who have English translations of the Bible. Sometimes it's a little bit more difficult for us to get at a proper understanding of how scripture describes how sin is dealt with due to the fact that we have an English word that has its Origin in Middle English and the term is atonement and it for real comes from a Middle English word at one mint and in the issue is is that You think you know what it means, but you don't and I find the original languages to be a little bit more helpful in understanding what's going on in the sacrifices as Opposed to the term atonement because it doesn't readily lend itself towards getting the idea.

So if you remember in the sermon today I talked about the fact that when we talk about Christ's sufferings on the cross. That there are kind of two ways that we can look at it. One is in terms of Expiation and that is is the removing of sin from a sinner and the other is Propitiation which has to do with God's justice being Satisfied and another word that is used in these terms is the word ransom.

Now when we hear the word ransom, we think somebody's being held hostage. You you know. And then you get the phone call from the guy who you know. Who played Qui-Gon Jinn and he goes I have the I have the suitcase full of money.

But you will be dead before the morning, you know something like this, you know, yeah. What's his what's his name again? Anyway, Liam Neeson. Yeah, so when we think of ransom we think of something like that.

But the biblical concept of ransom coming from the Hebrew word Kapoor has a different concept to it altogether. So with the little time that we have today We're gonna do a little mini study on what does God's Word say in this regard?

And what I wanted to do is and in fact, let me do this is let's take a look. And I'm gonna do it this way. Hang on my sermon is on my iPad and I am not easily able to share that with everybody but We're gonna take a look at some of the concepts that we took a look at number one.

Does scripture reveal that God has wrath towards sin and sinners?

Yes.

Is the fault with God or is the fault with us? It's with us now. I would note one of the things I'm kind of keen on nowadays having been the the object of Protracted slander and malice against me is I'm pretty Tuned in to the concept of thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

And so I when I go back into the account in the Garden of Eden in the Garden of Eden You have the serpent showing up and and that my paraphrase of the lead-off question. Is it true? He's not letting you guys eat.

Because you know his question is is it true that you you can't eat of any of the trees in the garden? That was the the original thing and there was an implied slander against God that God is somehow Evil and malicious that he's that he is he is a terrible terrible being and that he's not even letting Adam and Eve made in His own image eat.

Eve corrects him and says well we can't eat of the tree that's in the middle of the garden either shall we touch it lest we die and then the devil says you will not surely die and by inference the devil is saying God is a liar and so over and again, I'm kind of tuned in to instances where people within the visible church are slandering God.

So when Stephen Chalk says that God is a slave to his own Passions and that this is no better than a than a pagan deity requiring virgin sacrifices in a volcano that's slander and The being he's slandering is God.

And so when we talk about wrath and fury we have to understand it in terms of the fact that the Mosaic Covenant is Filled to bursting with legal and judicial talk God early on in the book of Genesis is revealed as the judge and our sin makes God the offended party and as our Judge then you're gonna note that if there's true sin taking place.

That they're that justice requires it to be Meet it out. One of the interesting Netflix documentaries that my wife and I recently watched was about the a man Back in the was it 90s 80s 90s. He confessed to a whole bunch of murders that he never committed.

It's called the confession the confession murderer. I think that's what it's called on Netflix and this is an interesting story of a guy who? Who's like one taco short of a combo plate who for real He confessed.

To.

Hundreds of murders across Texas the South all the way over to New Mexico and it turns out that the the Texas Rangers were Feeding him information about these crimes and any any crime that you gave that you showed him information on he would confess to having committed the murder and one particular prosecutor made up a case file a completely fictitious file.

Talking of you know, it created a fictitious murder victim had crime scene photos Details about it and this guy confessed to committing that crime but what has happened since is that it's been proven definitively that a significant number of the crimes that he's That he's confessed to doing he didn't do because the thing that wasn't available back then was DNA evidence and So they kept the DNA evidence and so they've opened up, you know a couple of dozen case files and you know reworked the cases and found he couldn't have been the murderer because the DNA doesn't match his DNA and Now you've got at the moment Several hundred Closed cases that this fellow has confessed to do to committing.

But it there's no reason to believe he's actually committed any of these murders and the families Participated in the making of this Netflix documentary because they want their Kate their families case files Opened so that their murderers can be brought to justice.

The murderers of their families and so you'll note that in our day and age we understand justice it is unjust. When you have an entire system that is refusing to find the real killer when there's proof that the guy who confessed to the murder never committed it and as a result of it these families go year after year after year without justice and it helps them when there is Justice because somebody they love has had a life taken from them.

So we understand justice and we understand that there's a process for it. But what's really fascinating is is that? People like chalk deny Deny that sin is of any consequence and that it's and they claim that it is wrong for God.

To.

Expect or to meet out justice against sinners who have rebelled against their Creator. This is nonsense and the and the double standard is is just glaring. Absolutely glaring. I have yet to see any progressive Theologian demand that we empty all the prisons out and that we just get rid of the whole justice system altogether that by the way we have a little bit of a concept of how that went in Minneapolis when they called for the You know to defund the police they've recently called to refund them, you know the woke churches are calling for the releasing of all the prisoners.

Yeah, I assure you that prison is not merely a symptom of institutionalized racism and I Know that you know because the white people are the racists now, so. So you get the idea here that there's there's something seriously wrong so let's take a look at just a couple of texts if we would and in my in my sermon today, I Took a look at a couple of places.

I'm going to duplicate this tab and we started off with the preaching of John the Baptist and I noted in my sermon today that John the Baptist is Christ says that of you know of men born of women. There's none greater than John the Baptist and He had he had some let's say dietary issues and a wardrobe that was rather fascinating kind of invokes Elijah, but here's what it says.

That was the preaching of John the Baptist when John the Baptist saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism. He said to them you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come the what? wrath to come.

John.

John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament prophets. He's the first of the evangelists and what he's preaching is a message given to him by God. So bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves We have Abraham as our father.

For I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the what.

Fire.

Okay, who's doing. Who's doing the eating there?

Right that's.

That's God. Yeah. Yeah, the one at the end. Yeah.

Yeah.

The rest. Yeah, the the smoke of their torment goes up before God forever and ever and ever.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, the the flood is an example of God's Just punishment of sinners.

Right.

And then we'll note that you know even in the conquest of Canaan that that God had called for certain people to be devoted to destruction as his justice against their sin. Sodom and Gomorrah is another example of that and then we'll note that the gospel of John chapter 3 John the Apostle Whom Jesus loved he always makes a point of making it getting in that little bit and and I was like the the resurrection account from got the John's gospel because you know John was the youngest of the Apostles.

He was that he was a pretty young fellow probably a teenager and guess what? He outran Peter to the tomb and he always has he puts that little dig in there and it's like it's like saying to Peter You're an old man, dude.

But you know, anyway, here's what John writes whoever believes in the Sun has eternal life. Who whoever does not obey the Sun shall not see life. But the what the wrath of God remains on him, so you'll know.

I mean here We've got clear passages that talk about God's wrath and justly so Against your sin and my sin and we the sinners who committed those sins. Yes, sir. Yeah to you. Yep repent.

Yep.

Yeah.

Tacitly calling Jesus a liar because Jesus does invoke the wrath of God. Yes. Yeah, and and yeah, you're right. The conclusion is you have to check out the whole religion and that video is from a series of videos that he put together calling to reform Christianity and one of his reforms that he wants to see Christianity overhauled is the removal of the doctrine that Christ died for our sins in any kind of a Punitive manner and that God has wrath He's calling for to for the church to reform itself and get rid of this concept of the wrath of God altogether.

33 yeah. Oh, they're it just gets progressively worse.

Yeah.

Right and it's all based on his opinions, you know, he's preaching from first opinions. He may have been taught well, but he may have apostatized and rejected it. Yeah Yeah hit that and these these are the chalk is with McLaren and the former emergence pageant and Jones and You know and a whole bunch of other people like the you know.

The late Rachel held Evans all calling for Christianity to reform itself by getting rid of these this doctrine of God's wrath altogether.

Yep, or we're better than God we're more moral than he is.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, indeed. I think that's a that's a great point. And this would be an example of what that you know We in the confessional Lutheran Tradition referred to as a form of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the is the word that means God within ism and the an adamant Eve.

Eve was became an enthusiast rather than listening to the external word of God that said do not eat of that tree. She looked inside of herself and went completely on feelings. It looked good. It was a delight for the eyes.

You know good to make one wise. All of these decisions were made based on her feelings. So enthusiasm takes on two forms though you have enthusiasm of the heart and the emotions and then the second form is enthusiasm of the mind where your thoughts your reasoning stands over the scriptures and anything that doesn't fit the Procrustean bed of your Thoughts and your opinions in Scripture gets cut out.

All right. Yes, David.

Yeah.

Yeah, we need to know.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep, and here's the thing that when you point out these texts they have no choice but to say well. That was what Paul said or that was what Moses said. Okay, or that's what John said. But you know and and so that what they're basically saying tacitly is that what these with these words From Scripture that talk about the wrath of God.

That they are not. They are not God's words. They are a mischaracterization of God. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, that would that be Thomas Jefferson. Yeah.

Yeah, yep. So so here's where I'm gonna I'm gonna reel in the conversation here so we can focus back on the scriptures. Yeah, but good conversation, by the way. Good input. I would note there's another text here and then we'll take a look at some others.

Paul writes in Romans 2 because of your heart and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. And so as Bruce pointed out that the ELCA claims that the Bible contains the Word of God and it's a very slippy Loosey fuzzy non, just you know.

Non-definable term as to when you know, you have the Word of God or not. It's similar to Mormonism. Mormonism. They believe they believe that the Bible is the Word of God with this kind of caveat. They'll say the King James version of the Bible is the Word of God and it's correct insofar as it's correctly Translated and what that means is that any doctrine in the King James Bible that contradicts Mormon doctrine is not correctly translated.

Yeah.

Yep, so so you're gonna note here. Paul says that the day of wrath is God's judgment and note the word here.

D. Ah, yeah.

Chris, ah, yeah, it's a quite the word it talking about judgment. This is a this is a Judicial term. God's wrath is revealed in righteous judgment. Courtroom language. Then he will render each one according to his works to those who by patience in doing And while doing seek the glory and honor and immortality.

This is only accomplished by grace through faith, by the way. He will then give eternal life. But those who are self-seeking who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. There will be what? wrath and fury.

Scripture is clear on this. But the thing is is that this is kind of the bad news portion of Scripture. I mean, this is the ultimate conclusion of the bad news persistent sin and unbelief and What you get to face at the end of the line is a very unhappy.

Judge.

Who is full of wrath and fury and will meet out? Justice against your sin. And this is where we have to pay attention then to how Scripture describes Christ's work on the cross. And here's the other thing.

In liberal circles and progressive circles they talk about what they call atonement theories.

Okay.

Atonement theories. This is their other slippy Nondefinable term which basically says that all the belief that Christ's suffered Vicariously your punishment on the cross. That's an atonement theory and they reject that theory and So they embrace other theories like Christus Victor or things like this.

And so they're always using the phrase atonement theories to basically use that as justification to deny what the clear text say and we need to be very careful here because Scripture doesn't reveal a theory Regarding what Christ did for us on the cross and how he accomplished our reconciliation to God Scripture doesn't give us a theory scripture reveals the mechanism by which this took place.

And so we do not believe in atonement theories. And here's the important part too is that Scripture uses several different major Revelational motifs in Describing the work of Christ on the cross. The best way to put it is what Christ accomplished is so deep that no one motif captures the Entirety of it and so the theologians that I was trained out under they always described Christ's work on the cross via the atonement as as a Multifaceted diamond if you were to think of it, you know a diamond has facets you look at a diamond.

But the central facet is always called the table of the jewel the table of the jewel penal substitution Christ Suffering your punishment and mine suffering the wrath of God in our place. That is the center.

That is the center point of the jewel. That's the central facet. Otherwise known as the table of the jewel itself that's the best way to put it and here's the idea anybody who's playing the the shell and pea game of Atonement theories and say well I reject that one, but I like this one Avoid that person like the plague because they're playing a game in order to be biblically accurate.

You embrace all of the motifs all of the ways in which Scripture Reveals what Christ accomplished on the cross and you do not exclude them so I recognize that penal substitution is the center facet of The atonement but it is an incomplete picture of it.

And so we do have Christus Victor we also have ransom we have other other ways in which Scripture describes these things and The idea then as a pastor as a Christian I don't reject one in favor of the other because I think it's unseemly for God to have wrath.

I think it's unseemly for you his creature to to heap guilt on God and to slander him in the in that way when Scripture so clearly says that the righteous judge judges righteously and if there's wrath and fury for the impenitent then we will never be able to point point a bony finger at God and say you are unjust God in punishing sinners in fact if anything God has been ridiculously patient with us.

He doesn't will that any should perish and anyone who does perish it's their fault not his. It was their will not his will that was done in that regard and that's the issue. So in that then let's take a look at Probably one of the more difficult passages in Scripture and we're going to take a look at Leviticus 16 as it relates to the day of atonement and You're gonna note what happened here the kind of the mitigating Circumstance with the establishment of the the day of atonement was that Aaron's two sons offered strange fire to God Did not follow the prescribed worship rules according to the Mosaic ceremonial laws and God burned him up and They died and Aaron wasn't even allowed to leave his post.

He had to keep at his post offering sacrifices. And so now we've got a big issue the issue of other sins that have to be dealt with and so this is where this comes into play the day of atonement with its establishment and that It's tricky to kind of work through how this works in the types and shadows.

But let me give you some texts that I think are going to be important here. If you were to do a search for he shall bear his iniquity in the Torah. Then you'll see this is a concept when we talk about sacrifices of the Old Testament.

It's a question of who's bearing the sin. Okay, so Leviticus 5 1 if anyone sins that he hears a public adjuration to testify and though he is a witness. Whether whether he has seen or come to know the matter yet.

He does not speak he shall bear His iniquity and iniquity here you could translate that also, you know as guilt. You know, he shall bear his own guilt. If anyone sins doing any of the things by the Lord's Commandments, they ought not be done though He did did know it then he realizes his guilt.

He shall bear his iniquity. So it's always a question of who's gonna who's gonna bear the guilt who's gonna bear the punishment if you would so that's one Concept along these lines and then here's another one.

That's really important because you'll note that throughout the Mosaic Covenant There over and again is a Requirements regarding blood in order to eat an animal to consume it you have to drain all of its blood.

Why for the life of the flesh is in the blood? When an animal is sacrificed what happens to the blood of that animal that blood is taken and is Sprinkled is splattered against the sides of the altar or on the horns of the altar.

And on the Day of Atonement, where is the blood taken? It is sprinkled on the top of the mercy seat, which is the lid of the Ark of the Covenant and. So all of these things are important because when we talk about life is in the blood.

This is where we see some of the substitutionary work being done. And the reason is this is that when we talk about Atonement, let me see if I have that open when we talk about atonement. In the Old Testament the English word atonement doesn't help us that much the Hebrew word behind it.

Oftentimes in the Mosaic Covenant is the Hebrew word Kapoor and this listen to what this says. Kapoor means a price for ransom of a life. Okay, the idea is this is when we talk about ransom. We're not talking about hostage situations here.

What we're talking about is one life for another so in the Mosaic sacrificial system. Which is a type and shadow and we learned in our Covenant lecture last week That without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins but the blood of goats and bulls never Made anyone perfect.

We're made perfect by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ without the shedding of blood. There is no forgiveness of sins. So Kapoor here the ransom here is the idea of one life for another and here's the thing in.

Even in our jurisprudence here in the United States. In fact all of Western civilization in in our legal codes it is possible for an innocent person to Vicariously take on the guilt of another and suffer in their place.

That's actually part of our legal system. That is an established part of our legal system that's been there for a long long long time. So this is this is already an established thing within our judiciary something that we should take into consideration.

So the idea then is that at its heart what we see in sacrifice is the transference of sin to an animal who's then slaughtered and Through his slaughter that what happens is this God's justice is meted out.

Because that life of the animal was taken instead of the life of the human being. That's the idea and then the other part of it is is that you got to remove the guilt from somebody and so that's all wrapped up in the transference the imputing to the animal the sins who then suffers in the place and here's the other part and this is the part a lot of people do not get that on the daily Sacrifices that were required like sin offerings and things like this.

It wasn't the priest who killed the animal. It was the worshiper who brought the animal for sacrifice. So and as part of the way that the the atoning sacrifices worked in the Mosaic Covenant. You had a sin offering you bring in a lamb a spotless lamb.

And then part of it is that you press your hands and you press them hard on the forehead of that animal. Signifying your sin is now imputed to that animal and then you are the one who takes the life of that animal now those of us who Live in Western civilization.

I've never killed an animal like that. Never I mean I've killed spiders and bugs and things like this. But you're gonna note that part of the worship of Israel was that the sacrifice then dies in the place of the sinner.

That's what ransom refers to and why because the life of the animal is in the blood. The blood is then taken to the altar and is sprinkled on the altar and God's justice is fulfilled because one life was Taken so that the other can live.

That's the concept behind it so on the Day of Atonement in scripture. In Leviticus 16, we're gonna we're gonna pay attention to some of these details it says the Lord spoke. Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of The two sons of Aaron when they drew near before Yahweh and they died.

Let me close up my Hebrew lexicon here. There we go. And Yahweh said to Moses tell Aaron and your brother not to come at any time to the holy place inside the veil before the mercy Seat that is on the ark so that that he may not die for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat but in this way Aaron should come into the holy place with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram Offering and a burnt offering.

He shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the linen undergarment on his body and he shall tie the linen sash Around his waist and wear the linen turban. These are the holy garments. So on the day of Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement, this is a big deal.

Everything has to be atoned for the the the the altar has to be atoned for the garments the high priest has to be atoned for before the actual sacrifice of the For sins of the whole of the people so everything's got to be purified.

All right.

And so and he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel watch this. Two male goats for a sin offering one ram for a burnt offering. So here we've got an interesting thing going on here and the two male goats you have to see them as a unit because the one represents the expiation the removal of sin from the people while the other represents the blood sacrifice that then ransoms the people and reconciles them to God.

The the two together are one unit and this then is played out in Christ In Christ's trial and you'll see this in a little bit. So Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself.

So you're going to note here that first things first Aaron's got to make. He's got to offer sacrifices for himself first before he's worthy to offer the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. Christ himself didn't need to do this.

Then he shall take two goats Set before Yahweh at the entrance of the tent of meeting and Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats. One lot for Yahweh and the other for Azazel. Azazel is a little difficult to kind of get.

Probably it's not a bad idea, but it may not be totally accurate to say one's for the devil. That's kind of the idea here. And so Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh and use it as a sin offering.

Here this one's going to be slaughtered. The goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before Yahweh. To make atonement over it that he may be sent away into the wilderness. And so one one deals with Propitiation the one that dies and the one that lives deals with expiation the removing of the sin from the actual people.

So Aaron shall present the bull as the sin offering for himself shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself and then he shall take a sensor full of coals of fire from the altar before Yahweh and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the On the fire before Yahweh that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony.