Gerry Breshears: Did the Father forsake Jesus on the Cross? (and other questions about atonement.)
*The GoodLion PodcastDecember 07, 2021
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01:18:5072.21 MB

Gerry Breshears: Did the Father forsake Jesus on the Cross? (and other questions about atonement.)

🎙️ Aaron Salvato🎙️ Aaron SalvatoHost
🎙️ Brian Higgins🎙️ Brian HigginsCo-Host

Prof Gerry Breshears is back for his record breaking 3rd time on the show! In this episode we dive into the debate swirling around PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) and ask Gerry all the hard questions!


In this episode we cover:



  • What exactly is PSA, and why do so many Christians disagree about it?

  • Can you defend PSA Biblically? 

  • What exactly happened on the Cross? What was the Trinity doing?

  • Are the classic song lyrics correct? Did the Father turn his face away from Jesus on the Cross?

  • Was Jesus forsaken on the Cross?

  • Bonus: Which atonement theory does Gerry prefer?

  • And: How can our understanding of the atonement impact our preaching to young people / postmoderns / deconstructionists?


Note from Aaron: The idea for this episode has been sitting in my brain for almost 7 years... back when I read a post from my friend and pastor Evan Wickham about his convo with Gerry about the atonement. The insights blew my mind then, and I hope they blow your mind now!



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodlionpod.substack.com


00:00:02 --> 00:00:03 Hey, everybody.

00:00:03 --> 00:00:04 Welcome to the Good Lion Podcast.

00:00:04 --> 00:00:05 I'm Aaron Salvato,

00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 and I'm here with the one,

00:00:07 --> 00:00:08 the only,

00:00:08 --> 00:00:08 the legendary,

00:00:09 --> 00:00:09 Gary Brashears.

00:00:10 --> 00:00:11 Gary, how's it going?

00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 Well, until you call me legendary, that sounds like I've already died.

00:00:15 --> 00:00:15 That's going good.

00:00:15 --> 00:00:22 No, we have the very much alive Gary Brashears with us today.

00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 Legendary, but alive.

00:00:24 --> 00:00:25 How's that?

00:00:25 --> 00:00:26 I'll take anything I can get.

00:00:26 --> 00:00:28 And I enjoy talking to Aaron.

00:00:28 --> 00:00:29 These are always fun.

00:00:29 --> 00:00:30 Oh, thanks, man.

00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 We enjoy talking to you.

00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 Seriously, it's such a gift to be able to chat with you, man.

00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 This is actually your third time on the show.

00:00:38 --> 00:00:39 Our first guest,

00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 very first guest to ever show up on the show three times.

00:00:42 --> 00:00:46 I know Brian was very bummed that he couldn't make it for this episode.

00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 The two of us love having you on the show because for us,

00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 it's like getting a free seminary class.

00:00:52 --> 00:00:56 It's like having our own personal seminary teacher here with us for free.

00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 Wait, you're not paying for this?

00:00:58 --> 00:00:58 Oh.

00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 Oh man, your check will be in the mail soon.

00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 Gary, why don't I intro you?

00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 For those of you guys who are not familiar with Gary,

00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 Gary Breshears has been a professor of theology at Western

00:01:12 --> 00:01:13 Seminary since 1980.

00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 He teaches at many colleges and seminaries around the world.

00:01:17 --> 00:01:18 He is a pastor to pastors.

00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 He is an elder and a member of the preaching team at Grace

00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Community Church in Oregon,

00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 as well as a part of the board of the Bible Project.

00:01:26 --> 00:01:26 That's all true.

00:01:27 --> 00:01:27 Yep.

00:01:27 --> 00:01:27 All right.

00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 Good.

00:01:28 --> 00:01:28 Good.

00:01:28 --> 00:01:29 Glad we got it.

00:01:29 --> 00:01:30 And I'm a very happy grandfather.

00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 You should add that in, too.

00:01:32 --> 00:01:32 Awesome.

00:01:32 --> 00:01:33 Awesome.

00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 Make sure bio and non-bio grandkids.

00:01:35 --> 00:01:36 Anyway.

00:01:36 --> 00:01:36 So good.

00:01:37 --> 00:01:37 So good.

00:01:37 --> 00:01:42 You know, I'm actually about to have my first child, a son.

00:01:42 --> 00:01:43 Yay!

00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 I'm super, super excited about it.

00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 My wife is due at the time of this recording in about three weeks.

00:01:49 --> 00:01:50 Cool.

00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 But at the time that this comes out, the baby will be born.

00:01:54 --> 00:01:56 So yeah, time is a weird thing.

00:01:57 --> 00:01:57 Gary,

00:01:57 --> 00:02:01 can you give me some fatherly advice since I'm about to become

00:02:01 --> 00:02:01 a father?

00:02:01 --> 00:02:01 Yeah.

00:02:01 --> 00:02:05 I enjoy big time because you never can push replay.

00:02:06 --> 00:02:07 Wow.

00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 And then just the basic idea, of course, love and structure.

00:02:10 --> 00:02:14 Those two together are 80% of parenting.

00:02:14 --> 00:02:15 You just love and structure.

00:02:15 --> 00:02:16 Love that.

00:02:16 --> 00:02:16 Love that.

00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 And there are details from there.

00:02:18 --> 00:02:19 But those love and structure,

00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 that basis is anyway,

00:02:21 --> 00:02:22 there's good books on parenting.

00:02:22 --> 00:02:26 We use we were doing parenting with love and logic before the

00:02:26 --> 00:02:27 book existed.

00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 And I think that's a good way to do things.

00:02:30 --> 00:02:30 Awesome.

00:02:30 --> 00:02:31 Awesome.

00:02:31 --> 00:02:31 Thank you for that.

00:02:32 --> 00:02:32 This is great, man.

00:02:32 --> 00:02:36 Free, free seminary, free parenting, parenting advice.

00:02:36 --> 00:02:37 I love it, man.

00:02:37 --> 00:02:38 I love it.

00:02:38 --> 00:02:38 So,

00:02:39 --> 00:02:39 Gary,

00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 are you ready to have a conversation about penal

00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 substitutionary atonement?

00:02:46 --> 00:02:47 Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:47 --> 00:02:47 Awesome.

00:02:47 --> 00:02:48 Absolutely.

00:02:48 --> 00:02:52 Getting some clarification on some of the brouhaha's going on

00:02:52 --> 00:02:52 in the Twittersphere

00:02:53 --> 00:02:53 would be really good.

00:02:54 --> 00:02:55 Yes, yes.

00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 So today we're going to talk a little bit about the debate

00:03:06 --> 00:03:07 around the theology of

00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 penal substitutionary atonement.

00:03:10 --> 00:03:11 And for the sake of time,

00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 we're just going to refer to it by its acronym,

00:03:14 --> 00:03:14 PSA,

00:03:14 --> 00:03:15 for the rest of the episode.

00:03:15 --> 00:03:16 So to start out,

00:03:17 --> 00:03:18 I was thinking it would be great,

00:03:18 --> 00:03:19 Gary,

00:03:19 --> 00:03:23 if you could help us understand the theology of PSA.

00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 I think there might be some people listening where they're like,

00:03:26 --> 00:03:27 what even is that?

00:03:27 --> 00:03:28 So can you break it down for us?

00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 What is the theology?

00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 Go step by step and help us understand what PSA means.

00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 Well, peace at a time.

00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 Atonement means there has to be some sort of work by God to

00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 enable those of us who

00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 have been driven out of the garden,

00:03:43 --> 00:03:44 Genesis chapter 3,

00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 to get back to the tree of life.

00:03:47 --> 00:03:51 And exactly what it takes on God's side to accomplish that atonement,

00:03:52 --> 00:03:52 redemption,

00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 that's the first statement.

00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 For a lot of people, God didn't have to do anything.

00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 We're already in because He's a kind and loving God,

00:04:00 --> 00:04:01 and that is not correct.

00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 Something has to be done.

00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 Then the next step is, what's the nature of that provision?

00:04:07 --> 00:04:11 And my view is that He does a whole bunch of different things.

00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 He conquers, crushes the serpent.

00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 He cleanses and redeems the creation.

00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 But substitution, which is the next word of...

00:04:21 --> 00:04:26 is that somehow there is a penalty associated with our betrayal

00:04:26 --> 00:04:27 of his relationship

00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 and our ongoing sin.

00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 And that penalty is in any justice system.

00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 There is a penalty associated with violation of the honor code

00:04:36 --> 00:04:37 or the law code or

00:04:37 --> 00:04:38 whatever it is.

00:04:39 --> 00:04:44 And so the key of substitution is there's a substitute who

00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 takes our penalty in our place.

00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 And that leads us into the third idea is the penal.

00:04:50 --> 00:04:54 That is that there is actually is a penalty associated with our betrayal,

00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 with our law breaking,

00:04:56 --> 00:04:57 all those different things.

00:04:58 --> 00:04:58 Right.

00:04:59 --> 00:05:03 Then the step up that becomes even more controversial for many people.

00:05:03 --> 00:05:07 PSA means that God is angry about our violation.

00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 And that anger has to go somewhere.

00:05:12 --> 00:05:17 And so PSA is often the idea that the father who's angry at our

00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 sin pours that

00:05:19 --> 00:05:23 wrath out on the son who loves us enough to die for us.

00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 So there's four different levels.

00:05:25 --> 00:05:26 There's atonement.

00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 We do something to get us back to the tree of life.

00:05:28 --> 00:05:29 There's a penal,

00:05:30 --> 00:05:30 or substitute,

00:05:31 --> 00:05:35 that somebody does the work for us rather than us have to do it ourselves.

00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 Penal is a penalty for our betrayal,

00:05:38 --> 00:05:42 and what it often means is the wrath of the Father goes on to

00:05:42 --> 00:05:43 the loving Son.

00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 So I agree with the first three, but not with the fourth.

00:05:47 --> 00:05:47 Okay,

00:05:47 --> 00:05:48 and for the audience,

00:05:48 --> 00:05:49 just in case they missed it,

00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 can you go back and just reframe the fourth?

00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 What is the fourth view and why do you disagree?

00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 Just in case we missed it.

00:05:58 --> 00:06:02 That the angry father who is angry simply because his justice

00:06:03 --> 00:06:04 makes him angry at

00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 sin and that anger has to go somewhere.

00:06:08 --> 00:06:13 And the anger of the angry father is poured out on the loving

00:06:13 --> 00:06:14 son who loves us

00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 enough to take the father's wrath.

00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 And that's the white hot wrath.

00:06:18 --> 00:06:19 It's the horror of the cross,

00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 far worse than the physical or honor,

00:06:22 --> 00:06:22 shame,

00:06:22 --> 00:06:22 pain.

00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 Yeah, that's really good.

00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 Those are really good summaries.

00:06:26 --> 00:06:26 You know,

00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 it makes me think that churches often,

00:06:29 --> 00:06:33 the pastoral preaching in a church is going to emphasize

00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 different aspects of the

00:06:35 --> 00:06:36 atonement theory,

00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 the idea of what exactly happened on the cross.

00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 Even if that church doesn't actually use terms like penal

00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 substitutionary atonement

00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 or Christus Victor or whatever atonement theory they subscribe to,

00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 it's going to come out in the preaching.

00:06:50 --> 00:06:50 Right.

00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 Growing up in Calvary Chapel and specifically my dad's church,

00:06:53 --> 00:06:54 Calvary Chapel Vista,

00:06:54 --> 00:07:00 I feel like the concepts of you are a sinner and your sin,

00:07:00 --> 00:07:01 the wages of sin,

00:07:02 --> 00:07:02 is death.

00:07:03 --> 00:07:07 The punishment that you deserve for your sin is death.

00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 But Jesus paid that price for you.

00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 That was never in question at our church.

00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 That was always a part of the teaching.

00:07:15 --> 00:07:20 Not so much the emphasis on the angry God burning with wrath

00:07:20 --> 00:07:21 against humanity,

00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 but definitely the idea that God hated sin and that sin was

00:07:26 --> 00:07:27 deserving of punishment.

00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 So there was the emphasis on the sin,

00:07:30 --> 00:07:31 the need for punishment,

00:07:31 --> 00:07:32 Jesus paying the debt.

00:07:32 --> 00:07:36 I remember listening to Keith Green songs growing up and he had

00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 that one song.

00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 Some people won't find out until it's too late with the lyrics.

00:07:41 --> 00:07:42 Someone had to pay the price.

00:07:42 --> 00:07:45 You could pay it yourself or find someone else.

00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 But who would be that nice to pay a debt that wasn't his?

00:07:48 --> 00:07:49 Well, I know someone like that.

00:07:49 --> 00:07:50 It's Jesus.

00:07:50 --> 00:07:55 So, yeah, I remember that imagery in my mind growing up, those lyrics.

00:07:55 --> 00:07:56 And so...

00:07:56 --> 00:07:56 Yeah.

00:07:56 --> 00:07:56 Great.

00:08:21 --> 00:08:21 Okay,

00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 so when it comes to PSA,

00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 there's been a lot of debate on this topic over the years.

00:08:26 --> 00:08:26 Right.

00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 Some people really seem to hate the concept of the atonement

00:08:30 --> 00:08:31 looking this way.

00:08:31 --> 00:08:35 Some have likened the idea of God sending Jesus to die on the

00:08:35 --> 00:08:36 cross for our sins as

00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 cosmic child abuse.

00:08:38 --> 00:08:38 Right.

00:08:39 --> 00:08:39 And,

00:08:39 --> 00:08:39 you know,

00:08:39 --> 00:08:40 to some extent,

00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 I can sympathize with where they're coming from because,

00:08:42 --> 00:08:42 you know,

00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 I'm about to have my own son.

00:08:44 --> 00:08:44 Mm-hmm.

00:08:44 --> 00:08:48 And the thought of forcing him to die for the sins of other people,

00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 that's not a fun thought for me.

00:08:50 --> 00:08:51 That's a pretty dark thought.

00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 It's not personally something I would do.

00:08:54 --> 00:08:54 Right.

00:08:55 --> 00:08:56 It makes me really uncomfortable.

00:08:56 --> 00:08:56 And so,

00:08:56 --> 00:08:57 you know,

00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 I could understand where the critics are coming from in saying

00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 that PSA does not

00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 seem to line up with the heart or the character of God.

00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 Well, if you define it, it absolutely does not.

00:09:06 --> 00:09:07 Right.

00:09:07 --> 00:09:08 It's a mischaracterization.

00:09:08 --> 00:09:09 Yeah.

00:09:09 --> 00:09:09 Yeah.

00:09:09 --> 00:09:15 If it's if this is the father forcing the son to come and get killed,

00:09:15 --> 00:09:16 that is child abuse.

00:09:16 --> 00:09:17 Right.

00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 But that's not the point.

00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 Biblically, it is God and God.

00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 It's not the powerful father and the helpless son.

00:09:26 --> 00:09:31 And that the son is fully committed to this process himself.

00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 So it's not that he is being beaten up by an angry father.

00:09:35 --> 00:09:39 It's that he and the father are partnering together to make atonement.

00:09:40 --> 00:09:40 Yes.

00:09:40 --> 00:09:41 Love that.

00:09:41 --> 00:09:45 And that concept is a huge thing we're going to discuss in this episode.

00:09:45 --> 00:09:50 I love that you're pointing out the reality of how easy it is

00:09:50 --> 00:09:51 to get this wrong and

00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 to mischaracterize this topic.

00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 You know, there's other people in the debate.

00:09:57 --> 00:09:58 That would probably be you and me.

00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 We'd fall on the side of people who would argue,

00:10:01 --> 00:10:02 no,

00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 what happened on the cross was not cosmic child abuse.

00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 And that that characterization is a gross misrepresentation of

00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 both God's heart and

00:10:11 --> 00:10:13 what actually happened on the cross.

00:10:13 --> 00:10:18 So I want to give a little bit of time to you to have you set

00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 up this debate.

00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 You have been around in the theological spheres for a long time,

00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 in the seminary spheres for a long time.

00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 Could you share your reflections with us on on this debate,

00:10:28 --> 00:10:32 how it came to be and kind of where it is now?

00:10:32 --> 00:10:32 Well,

00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 the spark point is what you described,

00:10:37 --> 00:10:38 the powerful,

00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 angry father forcing the loving,

00:10:40 --> 00:10:41 kind son.

00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 That is, first of all, it's a caricature.

00:10:44 --> 00:10:45 Almost nobody teaches that.

00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 So it's people who are actually against the idea of

00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 substitution of any kind,

00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 that we don't need a substitute to take a penalty for us.

00:10:55 --> 00:10:55 Right.

00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 of any kind or to pay a price for our sin.

00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 And it's actually what you see in a lot of the critical theory

00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 discussions about

00:11:02 --> 00:11:06 defunding the police or reforming prisons.

00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 Okay, I was not expecting you to go there.

00:11:08 --> 00:11:09 Well, it's the same idea though.

00:11:09 --> 00:11:10 That's where it's coming from.

00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 It's the same cultural context.

00:11:12 --> 00:11:13 Okay.

00:11:13 --> 00:11:18 And so people that put people in jail are evil people.

00:11:18 --> 00:11:19 And these aren't your words.

00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 You're speaking from the perspective of those who have an

00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 aversion to the penal form of justice.

00:11:25 --> 00:11:26 OK, I see.

00:11:26 --> 00:11:30 And so we should do is recognize that the criminal has been

00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 abused and hurt people,

00:11:32 --> 00:11:33 hurt people.

00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 So we need to do is forget the police, forget the prisons.

00:11:36 --> 00:11:40 We need to do psychologists and such to help the abused person

00:11:41 --> 00:11:42 heal so he won't

00:11:42 --> 00:11:43 hurt people and stop doing crime.

00:11:44 --> 00:11:45 Yeah, I've heard that line.

00:11:45 --> 00:11:46 And the idea that's where it comes from.

00:11:47 --> 00:11:51 It's the same thing that drives criminal reform is we the idea

00:11:51 --> 00:11:52 that we actually

00:11:52 --> 00:11:56 have done some things deserving of some sort of a penalty is

00:11:56 --> 00:11:57 the underlying touch point.

00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 And that's where it's a resistance to justice.

00:12:00 --> 00:12:01 That's correct.

00:12:01 --> 00:12:01 Hmm.

00:12:01 --> 00:12:06 This this idea that people should not be punished for their

00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 crimes or for their sins,

00:12:07 --> 00:12:08 but instead reform.

00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 And so this particular debate is fairly recent.

00:12:11 --> 00:12:12 Wow.

00:12:12 --> 00:12:13 I mean, it's in the past.

00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 Well, in the form is taken right now.

00:12:14 --> 00:12:16 It's only been in the past generation.

00:12:16 --> 00:12:16 Hmm.

00:12:17 --> 00:12:18 It was just beginning to develop.

00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 I've been doing this for 45 years.

00:12:21 --> 00:12:22 I've been teaching theology.

00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 And this debate has really developed since I started teaching.

00:12:26 --> 00:12:30 And the critical theory stuff and police reform in the sense

00:12:30 --> 00:12:31 we're doing it now is

00:12:31 --> 00:12:32 about the same era.

00:12:32 --> 00:12:33 Okay, okay.

00:12:33 --> 00:12:38 And the idea is penalty for crime is brutality,

00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 that we need to recognize these are good people who have been

00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 messed up by culture

00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 or abuse or something like that.

00:12:45 --> 00:12:49 It's actually Rousseau in the romantic enlightenment that's

00:12:49 --> 00:12:50 really taken on a new form.

00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 So there's no penalty is never okay.

00:12:54 --> 00:12:55 Same thing in child rearing.

00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 Don't ever, ever punish or discipline your child.

00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 Just affirm him and redirect him.

00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 But don't ever give him a timeout or anything like that.

00:13:04 --> 00:13:05 It's the same thing.

00:13:05 --> 00:13:06 That's where this is all coming from.

00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 It's from that.

00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 No, it's starting to make sense.

00:13:09 --> 00:13:13 Going back, it's Dr. Spock in his theory of child rearing.

00:13:13 --> 00:13:13 Not Mr.

00:13:13 --> 00:13:14 Spock,

00:13:14 --> 00:13:15 the Star Trek guy,

00:13:15 --> 00:13:16 but Dr.

00:13:16 --> 00:13:20 Spock in his very powerful book that came out just about the

00:13:20 --> 00:13:20 time I saw it a little

00:13:20 --> 00:13:21 bit earlier.

00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 And it's don't ever punish anybody.

00:13:23 --> 00:13:24 That's the wrong thing to do.

00:13:25 --> 00:13:29 So any kind of punishment that comes on Messiah is is wrong.

00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 Right, under this idea, under this framework.

00:13:32 --> 00:13:33 Yeah, that's interesting, man.

00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 I would have never made that connection,

00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 but I think there's definitely something to what you're saying.

00:13:39 --> 00:13:39 You know,

00:13:39 --> 00:13:44 I've actually seen this line of thinking really emphasized with

00:13:44 --> 00:13:45 my friends who

00:13:45 --> 00:13:49 would consider themselves in the stream of progressive Christianity,

00:13:49 --> 00:13:53 where there's really this love of God's mercy,

00:13:53 --> 00:13:58 but there's this real aversion to his justice or his wrath.

00:13:58 --> 00:13:58 Absolutely.

00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 And a lot of times the people that are struggling with that or

00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 are sort of reacting

00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 to experiences that they've had in more theologically

00:14:07 --> 00:14:08 conservative churches that

00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 may have really overemphasized God's wrath.

00:14:11 --> 00:14:16 And I feel like it's really easy for us to make mistakes in our

00:14:16 --> 00:14:17 theology when we're

00:14:18 --> 00:14:22 constantly swinging to one extreme or the other,

00:14:22 --> 00:14:22 right?

00:14:22 --> 00:14:22 Amen.

00:14:22 --> 00:14:23 Amen.

00:14:25 --> 00:14:29 You know, for me, I know the way that I'm naturally bent in my theology.

00:14:29 --> 00:14:30 I actually,

00:14:30 --> 00:14:35 I personally lean towards emphasizing God's grace and his mercy

00:14:35 --> 00:14:36 more than I do his wrath.

00:14:36 --> 00:14:40 And I've realized that that for me can be a blind spot because

00:14:40 --> 00:14:41 when I look in the scripture,

00:14:42 --> 00:14:43 both things are there.

00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 God's justice is there.

00:14:45 --> 00:14:46 His mercy is there.

00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 So we need to find ways to balance it.

00:14:48 --> 00:14:48 And see,

00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 that's where I argue that when we read scripture,

00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 we should do it in a community that

00:14:53 --> 00:14:54 that's ethnically,

00:14:54 --> 00:14:55 culturally,

00:14:55 --> 00:14:56 socioeconomically,

00:14:57 --> 00:14:58 theologically tribish,

00:14:58 --> 00:14:59 diverse community,

00:15:00 --> 00:15:06 and that lowers the cultural lenses that I inevitably bring to Scripture.

00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 So I'm reading somebody from an honor-shame culture.

00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 I'm more a power-fear culture in our society now.

00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 I read somebody as a law and order type person.

00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 I read it with somebody who's poor, somebody who's rich.

00:15:18 --> 00:15:19 And so on.

00:15:19 --> 00:15:19 I read it.

00:15:20 --> 00:15:21 I might even read it with some of those dang Calvinists.

00:15:21 --> 00:15:22 You know, who knows?

00:15:24 --> 00:15:25 I speak lightly.

00:15:25 --> 00:15:29 But in a diverse in that rules out some of these cultural lenses,

00:15:29 --> 00:15:30 we inevitably bring the scripture.

00:15:31 --> 00:15:31 Right.

00:15:41 --> 00:15:41 So Gary,

00:15:41 --> 00:15:43 it sounds like you land,

00:15:44 --> 00:15:45 as would I,

00:15:46 --> 00:15:51 in sort of this category of believing in the punishment side of things,

00:15:51 --> 00:15:55 believing that humans are deserving of punishment,

00:15:56 --> 00:16:00 and yet there's this balance between God's justice and His mercy.

00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 Where are you drawing your view from?

00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 Can you point us in Scripture to where that's coming from?

00:16:05 --> 00:16:05 Yeah.

00:16:05 --> 00:16:06 Well, there's a number of them.

00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 I mean, just straight up scripture.

00:16:09 --> 00:16:13 One of my favorite scriptures in this whole kind of thing is Isaiah 53.

00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 You know, it's kind of everybody's favorite messianic passages.

00:16:17 --> 00:16:17 Right.

00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 You know, he had despised and rejected a man of suffering.

00:16:21 --> 00:16:21 OK, we get that.

00:16:21 --> 00:16:25 But you keep reading verse five is 53, five.

00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 He is pierced for our transgressions.

00:16:28 --> 00:16:29 He's crushed for iniquities.

00:16:30 --> 00:16:31 And it goes on.

00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 The punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his

00:16:34 --> 00:16:35 wounds were healed.

00:16:35 --> 00:16:35 Yeah.

00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 You know, we've all gone astray.

00:16:38 --> 00:16:39 He turned our own way.

00:16:39 --> 00:16:43 And then verse six, the Lord has laid the iniquities all on him.

00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 And I mean, that's just one passage.

00:16:46 --> 00:16:51 But you look back in Genesis, Adam and Eve are driven out of the garden.

00:16:52 --> 00:16:57 And when they try to get back on their own terms, they can't do that.

00:16:57 --> 00:16:58 Right.

00:16:58 --> 00:17:02 But the idea that there's some sort of a penalty for betrayal.

00:17:03 --> 00:17:03 You know,

00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 when I look in just ordinary society,

00:17:05 --> 00:17:10 everybody believes that somebody who's betrayed me got to pay.

00:17:10 --> 00:17:10 Hmm.

00:17:10 --> 00:17:10 Hmm.

00:17:11 --> 00:17:12 I don't think I should pay,

00:17:12 --> 00:17:13 but the person who betrayed me,

00:17:13 --> 00:17:14 they got to pay.

00:17:15 --> 00:17:15 Right.

00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 We all have penalty written into it.

00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 Even the kindest and gentlest person,

00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 when they are betrayed or violated,

00:17:22 --> 00:17:23 they're ticked.

00:17:23 --> 00:17:23 Yes.

00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 When somebody steals their credit card and ruins their credit,

00:17:27 --> 00:17:28 they think that guy ought to pay.

00:17:28 --> 00:17:29 Yes.

00:17:29 --> 00:17:29 Yeah.

00:17:30 --> 00:17:30 So it's just,

00:17:31 --> 00:17:35 it's ironic that some of the strongest no penalty really

00:17:35 --> 00:17:36 believe in penalty when

00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 they're the ones that are hurt.

00:17:37 --> 00:17:38 Yes, so true.

00:17:38 --> 00:17:39 So true.

00:17:39 --> 00:17:39 You know,

00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 one thing that comes to my mind is,

00:17:42 --> 00:17:42 you know,

00:17:42 --> 00:17:46 you're talking about how even those of us who might have

00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 aversions to justice and

00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 law and order and punishment,

00:17:52 --> 00:17:56 everybody actually does have a sense of justice.

00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 And you see that manifested in progressive spheres in sort of

00:17:59 --> 00:18:00 the online social

00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 media call out culture.

00:18:02 --> 00:18:06 There's this current idea right now in our society where basically,

00:18:07 --> 00:18:07 you know,

00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 when it comes to social media,

00:18:09 --> 00:18:14 if you say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing,

00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 that it goes against the cultural norm.

00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 Or if it comes out that you said something inappropriate or did

00:18:21 --> 00:18:22 something inappropriate,

00:18:22 --> 00:18:23 even if it was 10 years ago,

00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 the sense from social media like Twitter and things like that

00:18:27 --> 00:18:28 is not like,

00:18:28 --> 00:18:28 oh,

00:18:28 --> 00:18:29 you know,

00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 no punishment,

00:18:30 --> 00:18:31 just be a better person.

00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 It's no, we will descend on you.

00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 And we will completely cancel you,

00:18:37 --> 00:18:38 ruin your career,

00:18:38 --> 00:18:39 wipe you out of existence.

00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 And I'm not saying that there shouldn't be consequences for

00:18:43 --> 00:18:43 things that were said

00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 and done that were wrong,

00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 even if it was 10 years ago.

00:18:46 --> 00:18:47 There absolutely should be.

00:18:47 --> 00:18:51 I'm just trying to point out that we all have this standard of justice.

00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 And the phrase now is hold accountable.

00:18:54 --> 00:18:54 Right.

00:18:54 --> 00:18:55 Yeah.

00:18:55 --> 00:18:56 But it's the same thing.

00:18:56 --> 00:18:56 It's there's penalty.

00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 Yeah.

00:18:58 --> 00:18:59 We want justice.

00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 We want wrongs to be righted.

00:19:01 --> 00:19:06 And so even modern progressive culture has that sense of justice.

00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 It just looks slightly different than,

00:19:09 --> 00:19:09 you know,

00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 some of these other ways we're looking at it.

00:19:11 --> 00:19:11 That's correct.

00:19:11 --> 00:19:11 Now,

00:19:12 --> 00:19:12 Now,

00:19:12 --> 00:19:12 on the flip side,

00:19:12 --> 00:19:13 I want to ask you,

00:19:13 --> 00:19:13 Gary,

00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 in the theologically conservative camp,

00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 are there ways that you feel that there have been well-meaning

00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 pastors who affirm PSA,

00:19:22 --> 00:19:26 but they've given it a bad rap through poor representation and

00:19:26 --> 00:19:27 poor preaching?

00:19:27 --> 00:19:27 Yeah.

00:19:28 --> 00:19:28 Yes.

00:19:29 --> 00:19:30 Yes.

00:19:30 --> 00:19:31 All right.

00:19:32 --> 00:19:32 All right.

00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 Just like in contemporary stuff around criminal stuff,

00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 you get the really strong law and order.

00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 Put him in jail and throw away the key kind of stuff.

00:19:40 --> 00:19:40 Right.

00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 You know, there's no attempt to rehabilitate him, those sorts of things.

00:19:44 --> 00:19:44 And the same thing.

00:19:45 --> 00:19:49 Well, I'll just point to one of my heroes in the faith, Tim Keller.

00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 He is not a hardcore guy,

00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 but he never talks about atonement without talking about the,

00:19:56 --> 00:20:00 why did Jesus quimper all the way to the cross and Christian

00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 martyrs go laughing and,

00:20:02 --> 00:20:02 well not laughing,

00:20:02 --> 00:20:06 they go singing triumphantly as they're being torn apart by lions.

00:20:07 --> 00:20:07 Why is Jesus such a wuss?

00:20:07 --> 00:20:08 Wow.

00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 And the point is, he's not a wuss.

00:20:12 --> 00:20:16 He has to drink the white hot cup of God's frothing wrath,

00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 the cup of wrath that we see all through scripture.

00:20:20 --> 00:20:24 And because he has to do that, that is so horrible.

00:20:25 --> 00:20:25 Yeah.

00:20:25 --> 00:20:29 And and Keller does it in a very pastoral kind of way.

00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 But other people do it in a really strong law and order thing.

00:20:32 --> 00:20:33 Right.

00:20:33 --> 00:20:38 The God of justice cannot look on sin because he is holy and just.

00:20:38 --> 00:20:44 So that wrath is just exploding because of the mass of sin.

00:20:44 --> 00:20:44 Mm hmm.

00:20:45 --> 00:20:48 And when Jesus takes our sin, therefore, he merits his wrath.

00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 And they really get into this really hardcore.

00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 If you do the crime, you got to pay the time.

00:20:53 --> 00:20:53 Right.

00:20:54 --> 00:20:54 Right.

00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 And they just they make justice in this vengeful justice.

00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 And it really does become vengeful.

00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 And they kind of glory in the God who's going to kill them.

00:21:02 --> 00:21:03 Hmm.

00:21:03 --> 00:21:05 And that's, again, where it comes out.

00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 Them are bad guys and God's going to kill you.

00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 He's going to you're going to burn in hell forever.

00:21:09 --> 00:21:10 Right.

00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 And but if Jesus takes your penalty,

00:21:12 --> 00:21:16 he takes the fires of hell for you there on the cross and they

00:21:16 --> 00:21:16 just get carried

00:21:16 --> 00:21:17 away with this stuff.

00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 And it's it becomes a very,

00:21:20 --> 00:21:20 very,

00:21:20 --> 00:21:20 I think,

00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 vengeful God and desperately misportrays the character of God.

00:21:25 --> 00:21:25 Hmm.

00:21:25 --> 00:21:26 Yeah, I think you're right.

00:21:26 --> 00:21:27 Yeah,

00:21:27 --> 00:21:27 I think,

00:21:27 --> 00:21:27 I think,

00:21:27 --> 00:21:31 I think it can be so easy for us to misrepresent God and

00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 misportray God because

00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 we're constantly swinging to either one extreme or the other.

00:21:38 --> 00:21:38 Like,

00:21:38 --> 00:21:39 like for instance,

00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 I've read Jonathan Edwards,

00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 And I find things in that where I'm like,

00:21:46 --> 00:21:46 man,

00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 I feel like he's misportraying God's character.

00:21:48 --> 00:21:48 But then,

00:21:49 --> 00:21:49 you know,

00:21:49 --> 00:21:52 I've also read Brian Zahn's response to that book,

00:21:52 --> 00:21:54 Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.

00:21:54 --> 00:21:54 And I

00:21:54 --> 00:21:59 I feel like he gets some things wrong and swings too far in one direction.

00:21:59 --> 00:22:01 Well, see, they're both writing a cultural context.

00:22:02 --> 00:22:02 Jonathan Edwards,

00:22:03 --> 00:22:03 brilliant,

00:22:03 --> 00:22:03 brilliant,

00:22:03 --> 00:22:04 brilliant man,

00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 is writing a context where they put people in stocks to

00:22:07 --> 00:22:08 publicly shame them and

00:22:08 --> 00:22:10 death penalty was not uncommon.

00:22:10 --> 00:22:11 Right.

00:22:11 --> 00:22:11 Yeah.

00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 It's a much more harsh society.

00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 And so he tend to read the scripture in terms of you're a

00:22:16 --> 00:22:17 loathsome insect hanging

00:22:17 --> 00:22:18 over the fires of hell.

00:22:19 --> 00:22:19 Right.

00:22:19 --> 00:22:23 But where he comes to is God and his love redeems you from that place.

00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 I'm not a huge Edwards fan and certainly not in his theology.

00:22:26 --> 00:22:27 Yeah, me neither.

00:22:27 --> 00:22:28 But that's where he's coming from.

00:22:28 --> 00:22:29 That makes sense.

00:22:29 --> 00:22:30 You know,

00:22:30 --> 00:22:30 thinking about Edwards,

00:22:30 --> 00:22:33 it reminds me of conversations with Christians that I've had

00:22:33 --> 00:22:34 where I would define

00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 them as law and order Christians.

00:22:37 --> 00:22:37 And,

00:22:37 --> 00:22:38 you know,

00:22:38 --> 00:22:41 Christians that have a very strong sense of justice,

00:22:41 --> 00:22:44 a very high appreciation for God's wrath,

00:22:44 --> 00:22:48 but not a very strong appreciation for his mercy or his love.

00:22:48 --> 00:22:48 Yeah.

00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 And when I've talked to those Christians,

00:22:51 --> 00:22:55 there's times in our conversations where they'll be dealing

00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 very harshly with a sinner.

00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 And there's this strong desire,

00:22:59 --> 00:22:59 you know,

00:22:59 --> 00:23:00 like,

00:23:00 --> 00:23:00 oh,

00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 I can't believe this sinner and God needs to come against them

00:23:03 --> 00:23:04 with his wrath.

00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 And the place that I go to with them is,

00:23:07 --> 00:23:07 you know,

00:23:07 --> 00:23:08 I'll say,

00:23:08 --> 00:23:08 okay,

00:23:08 --> 00:23:09 on the one hand,

00:23:09 --> 00:23:09 like,

00:23:09 --> 00:23:09 yes,

00:23:09 --> 00:23:10 like,

00:23:10 --> 00:23:13 Yes, sinners deserve God's judgment.

00:23:14 --> 00:23:14 Absolutely.

00:23:15 --> 00:23:19 But I feel like we can't lose sight of the nature of God's mercy.

00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 And the place that I go to is I try to remind people,

00:23:22 --> 00:23:22 you know,

00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 no matter what you have done as a sinner,

00:23:26 --> 00:23:27 because we're all sinners,

00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 the Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 And so you can look at one person,

00:23:33 --> 00:23:33 you know,

00:23:33 --> 00:23:34 in our society,

00:23:34 --> 00:23:35 you know,

00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 the different crimes have different punishments.

00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 You know, somebody robs a liquor store.

00:23:39 --> 00:23:40 That's going to be one punishment.

00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 Someone commits mass murder.

00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 That's going to be a much harsher punishment.

00:23:44 --> 00:23:45 Right.

00:23:45 --> 00:23:46 But but for all of us.

00:23:46 --> 00:23:46 Right.

00:23:46 --> 00:23:49 Every single sinner, the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 So no matter what society says about your sin,

00:23:53 --> 00:23:54 according to God's standard,

00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 all of us are guilty and worthy of death.

00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 All of us deserve the spiritual death penalty,

00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 not just the physical death penalty,

00:24:02 --> 00:24:03 but actually the spiritual death penalty,

00:24:03 --> 00:24:05 which is way worse than physical death.

00:24:05 --> 00:24:05 Amen.

00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 And so I try to remind people, like, what has Jesus saved you and I from?

00:24:10 --> 00:24:15 Like, he has saved us from the spiritual death penalty, eternal.

00:24:15 --> 00:24:16 eternal death.

00:24:17 --> 00:24:18 And we have been saved from so much,

00:24:19 --> 00:24:23 even though we are deserving of so much penalty.

00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 And so I just try to remind people,

00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 keep that in mind when you're looking at someone and evaluating

00:24:28 --> 00:24:29 and judging their sin.

00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 Yes, yes, criminals should be punished.

00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 Yes, we need criminal justice.

00:24:34 --> 00:24:35 Yes, we need criminal reform.

00:24:35 --> 00:24:39 But we need to remember to hold that tension of mercy and love

00:24:39 --> 00:24:40 in our heart because

00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 we have been shown such great mercy and love,

00:24:44 --> 00:24:45 even though we were worthy.

00:24:45 --> 00:24:46 Yeah, that's good.

00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 And one of the things that I always do is take people back to

00:24:50 --> 00:24:51 the most quoted verse

00:24:51 --> 00:24:52 in the Bible by the Bible.

00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 And, you know, John Mark Comer now written a book on that.

00:24:56 --> 00:24:56 And there are others.

00:24:56 --> 00:24:57 But John Mark's is really good.

00:24:58 --> 00:24:58 God has a name.

00:24:59 --> 00:24:59 Yes.

00:24:59 --> 00:25:00 Yeah, I've read it.

00:25:00 --> 00:25:01 So good.

00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 And that verse is Moses in the cleft of the rock.

00:25:04 --> 00:25:08 And the first thing it says as God announces his character is,

00:25:08 --> 00:25:09 I am compassionate,

00:25:09 --> 00:25:10 I care,

00:25:10 --> 00:25:10 gracious,

00:25:11 --> 00:25:11 I help,

00:25:12 --> 00:25:13 slow to anger,

00:25:13 --> 00:25:14 not slithing,

00:25:15 --> 00:25:15 wrathful,

00:25:16 --> 00:25:16 loving,

00:25:17 --> 00:25:17 faithful,

00:25:17 --> 00:25:18 forgiving,

00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 but does not leave the guilty unpunished.

00:25:21 --> 00:25:23 And you've got to have that last phrase in there to get the

00:25:23 --> 00:25:24 full character there.

00:25:24 --> 00:25:28 But his lead is that he's compassionate and gracious and slow to anger.

00:25:28 --> 00:25:28 Yes.

00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 but the does not leave the guilty unpunished that's the one

00:25:33 --> 00:25:34 that refuses his

00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 forgiveness will not admit that they need have needs and

00:25:37 --> 00:25:38 continue to worship and

00:25:38 --> 00:25:42 serve the other gods and destroy a righteous community yeah

00:25:42 --> 00:25:43 right like there's this

00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 standard of justice

00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 where sin must go punished,

00:25:48 --> 00:25:52 but then there is this offer for anyone,

00:25:53 --> 00:25:54 no matter how great their sin,

00:25:54 --> 00:25:58 that they can escape the punishment if they just simply pledge

00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 their allegiance to Jesus,

00:26:00 --> 00:26:02 which is incredible.

00:26:02 --> 00:26:03 That's an incredible offer.

00:26:03 --> 00:26:04 Yeah, that's good.

00:26:11 --> 00:26:11 All right, Gary.

00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 So I've been really enjoying this conversation so far.

00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 The next place that I want to go is I want to get to that

00:26:17 --> 00:26:18 question of what actually

00:26:18 --> 00:26:20 happened on the cross.

00:26:21 --> 00:26:22 And so to set it up,

00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 I'm going to share a clip from our mutual friend,

00:26:25 --> 00:26:25 Evan Wickham.

00:26:26 --> 00:26:28 Evan is the pastor at Park Hill Church.

00:26:28 --> 00:26:32 He's my former youth pastor and he's your former student at

00:26:32 --> 00:26:33 Western Seminary.

00:26:33 --> 00:26:33 Yeah.

00:26:33 --> 00:26:36 And it was actually some correspondence between you and him

00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 that inspired this entire episode.

00:26:39 --> 00:26:40 Back in 2014,

00:26:40 --> 00:26:44 he was prepping for a sermon to teach Mark chapter 15,

00:26:44 --> 00:26:45 the death of Jesus.

00:26:45 --> 00:26:48 And as he was wrestling through some of these concepts,

00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 He reached out to you to ask some questions,

00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 and it was your response that just stuck with me for the last

00:26:54 --> 00:26:55 seven years.

00:26:55 --> 00:26:59 And so I'm glad that finally we're making some content based around this.

00:26:59 --> 00:27:01 So I'm going to go ahead and let Evan set it up.

00:27:01 --> 00:27:05 I'm going to play a clip from his sermon where he goes through

00:27:05 --> 00:27:06 wrestling through

00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 this issue of what happened on the cross,

00:27:08 --> 00:27:12 and he's going to detail some of the correspondence he had with you.

00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 So let's go ahead and listen to what Evan has to say here.

00:27:14 --> 00:27:15 So let's keep reading verse 34.

00:27:15 --> 00:27:18 I feel like I had an out-of-brain experience this week just

00:27:18 --> 00:27:19 trying to wrestle through this.

00:27:20 --> 00:27:21 Verse 34 says,

00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 and at three in the afternoon,

00:27:23 --> 00:27:25 Jesus cried out in a loud voice,

00:27:25 --> 00:27:26 which means,

00:27:26 --> 00:27:27 my God,

00:27:27 --> 00:27:27 my God,

00:27:27 --> 00:27:28 why have you forsaken me?

00:27:35 --> 00:27:36 All week I've been haunted by that.

00:27:37 --> 00:27:37 To be honest,

00:27:38 --> 00:27:43 I'm actually kind of dreading even venturing into this one just

00:27:43 --> 00:27:45 because of the deep

00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 mystery of it and yet the harsh reality of it.

00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

00:27:52 --> 00:27:55 Uttered by the God, man in Christ, Jesus Christ.

00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 Like, how does this work?

00:27:57 --> 00:28:01 God in Christ crying out, my God, why have you forsaken me?

00:28:01 --> 00:28:02 I feel godless and I'm God.

00:28:02 --> 00:28:03 It's like, what is happening here?

00:28:04 --> 00:28:07 figure that one out mind shut off fatal error system shut down

00:28:08 --> 00:28:09 rebooting so what's

00:28:09 --> 00:28:13 going on here as christians we know that jesus died for our

00:28:13 --> 00:28:15 sins right jesus died

00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 for our sins and we can we can wrap our minds around what that

00:28:17 --> 00:28:18 means for us

00:28:18 --> 00:28:22 absolutely like any four-year-old that places their little

00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 faith in jesus from day

00:28:25 --> 00:28:25 one

00:28:26 --> 00:28:30 can begin wrapping his or her mind around what Jesus died for

00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 our sins means for us.

00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 But verse 34, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

00:28:38 --> 00:28:43 Jesus says, like verse 34 forces us out into crazy waters where

00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 We are forced to engage the question,

00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 what does Jesus dying for our sins mean for Jesus?

00:28:51 --> 00:28:55 And that's an intense place to launch out into,

00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 but we have to because we're here.

00:28:59 --> 00:29:00 So here's how I come at it.

00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 In Stuart Townend's worship song,

00:29:02 --> 00:29:02 like,

00:29:03 --> 00:29:04 How Deep the Father's Love for Us.

00:29:05 --> 00:29:06 How deep the Father's love for us.

00:29:07 --> 00:29:08 How vast beyond all measure.

00:29:09 --> 00:29:09 Love it.

00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 Beautiful, super rich hymn.

00:29:12 --> 00:29:12 But,

00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 and I use the word but kind of intentionally,

00:29:15 --> 00:29:15 he writes,

00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 How great the pain of searing loss.

00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 The father turns his face away.

00:29:22 --> 00:29:24 And then there's another song we sing.

00:29:24 --> 00:29:25 I love the song.

00:29:25 --> 00:29:25 I sing it a lot.

00:29:26 --> 00:29:27 Bethel Music's Forever.

00:29:27 --> 00:29:33 It says, one final breath he gave as heaven looked away.

00:29:34 --> 00:29:35 And I don't know about that.

00:29:36 --> 00:29:37 So the question is,

00:29:37 --> 00:29:39 did the Father,

00:29:39 --> 00:29:39 God,

00:29:40 --> 00:29:44 abandon slash turn away slash separate from Jesus at the cross?

00:29:44 --> 00:29:46 Is that what the biblical authors teach?

00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 Is that what Jesus is shouting here in verse 34?

00:29:50 --> 00:29:54 Jesus absolutely bore our sin and shame as our faithful substitute.

00:29:54 --> 00:29:56 That's Christianity 101 for sure.

00:29:56 --> 00:29:59 But let me ask you, this is kind of where I'm going with this.

00:29:59 --> 00:30:04 Is it an explicitly biblical idea that there was some kind of breach of

00:30:04 --> 00:30:05 relationship within the Trinity or

00:30:06 --> 00:30:10 Or is that just implied and systematically inferred through an

00:30:10 --> 00:30:11 imposed filter?

00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 So, I emailed our friend Dr. Gary Beshears.

00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 about this he runs the theology department at western he's no

00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 slouch uh we're he's

00:30:20 --> 00:30:24 a family friend here at jesus church and here's his response

00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 here it is this is

00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 gary and it emailed to me three days ago as i see it the

00:30:28 --> 00:30:29 picture of the father

00:30:30 --> 00:30:35 pouring wrath out on the son leaves out two key points one the

00:30:35 --> 00:30:36 wrath of the son on

00:30:36 --> 00:30:37 sin because revelation 6 14 says he has that

00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 and the agony of the father who crushes his son.

00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 Isaiah 53 10 says that.

00:30:46 --> 00:30:47 So my current phrase is,

00:30:47 --> 00:30:48 and here's his axiom,

00:30:48 --> 00:30:49 my current phrase is,

00:30:50 --> 00:30:53 the father and the son partner together,

00:30:54 --> 00:30:58 both agonizing to perform the substitutionary sacrifice to

00:30:58 --> 00:30:59 satisfy the wrath of

00:30:59 --> 00:31:00 both the father and the son.

00:31:02 --> 00:31:02 There it is.

00:31:03 --> 00:31:04 It's a partnership.

00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 The father and the son partnering together,

00:31:07 --> 00:31:11 both agonizing up to and through the cross,

00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 both dealing with sin head on,

00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 no enmity,

00:31:15 --> 00:31:16 only partnership.

00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 And then there's Jesus' own words.

00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 The night he was betrayed, he said, John 16, 32, listen to this.

00:31:23 --> 00:31:26 When you all run away from me and leave me alone,

00:31:27 --> 00:31:30 I won't be alone because my father's with me.

00:31:31 --> 00:31:32 Jesus' own words the night before he died.

00:31:44 --> 00:31:44 Music.

00:31:52 --> 00:31:53 So, so good, man.

00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 I remember hearing that years ago and it stuck with me and,

00:31:58 --> 00:31:58 and I just,

00:31:58 --> 00:32:00 I want to pick this apart with you.

00:32:00 --> 00:32:00 So,

00:32:00 --> 00:32:00 so Gary,

00:32:01 --> 00:32:01 later in the convo,

00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 we're going to revisit the points of things like those classic

00:32:05 --> 00:32:06 song lyrics and the

00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 question of did God actually turn his face away?

00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 Did God forsake Jesus?

00:32:10 --> 00:32:11 But for right now,

00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 can we focus in on this concept of the father,

00:32:14 --> 00:32:15 the son,

00:32:15 --> 00:32:15 the spirit,

00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 the Trinity agonizing together on the cross?

00:32:18 --> 00:32:20 Where does that idea come from?

00:32:20 --> 00:32:21 Where are you pulling that from?

00:32:28 --> 00:32:32 There are three prophetic pictures of what happened on the cross.

00:32:32 --> 00:32:33 The Day of Atonement,

00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 where the priest takes the two goats,

00:32:36 --> 00:32:37 kills one,

00:32:37 --> 00:32:38 confesses,

00:32:38 --> 00:32:39 and it takes away.

00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 The Passover,

00:32:41 --> 00:32:45 where the father brings the lamb into the house for a period of time,

00:32:45 --> 00:32:46 treat it like a family member,

00:32:46 --> 00:32:49 and then kills it and puts the blood on the doorposts.

00:32:50 --> 00:32:54 And then Abraham Isaac's sacrifice in Genesis 22.

00:32:55 --> 00:32:56 In this case, I'm looking at Abraham Isaac.

00:32:57 --> 00:33:01 Isaac's carrying wood up a hill and that hill is actually Mount

00:33:01 --> 00:33:02 Zion or Mount Calvary.

00:33:03 --> 00:33:03 Right.

00:33:03 --> 00:33:04 And we get to the top.

00:33:04 --> 00:33:09 Abraham lays him out on this altar and is about to slaughter him.

00:33:10 --> 00:33:11 And then the angel of the Lord,

00:33:11 --> 00:33:12 the one,

00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 the second person of the Trinity who will eventually be

00:33:15 --> 00:33:16 incarnate and will die on

00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 that hill is the one that says,

00:33:18 --> 00:33:18 stop.

00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 I think what happens there in that picture,

00:33:22 --> 00:33:26 we understand the agony of Jesus because our agony.

00:33:27 --> 00:33:28 But that picture,

00:33:28 --> 00:33:32 and you go back and look what Abraham is feeling as he's carrying,

00:33:32 --> 00:33:34 as he and his son are walking up that hill.

00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 And when his son says, daddy, where's the lamb?

00:33:36 --> 00:33:37 Right.

00:33:37 --> 00:33:40 And well, you know, Abraham knows who the lamb is.

00:33:40 --> 00:33:41 It's his son.

00:33:41 --> 00:33:41 Right.

00:33:41 --> 00:33:43 And as he's walking up that hill,

00:33:43 --> 00:33:45 which is a long journey,

00:33:45 --> 00:33:49 and then he lays his son out and lifts the knife to slaughter his son.

00:33:49 --> 00:33:50 I'm a dad.

00:33:50 --> 00:33:51 I'm a granddad.

00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 And you're about to be a dad, Aaron.

00:33:54 --> 00:33:55 Yeah.

00:33:55 --> 00:33:55 Right.

00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 Like the thought of my son going through that is horrible.

00:33:58 --> 00:33:58 Yes.

00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 And I think that's the picture.

00:34:01 --> 00:34:02 That's a picture,

00:34:02 --> 00:34:06 but a primary picture of what the father is feeling as he is

00:34:06 --> 00:34:08 sacrificing his son.

00:34:08 --> 00:34:08 Wow.

00:34:09 --> 00:34:10 And Isaiah 53,

00:34:10 --> 00:34:16 10,

00:34:10 --> 00:34:13 it says specifically the father is going to crush the son,

00:34:13 --> 00:34:16 not for divine abuse jollies.

00:34:16 --> 00:34:16 Right.

00:34:16 --> 00:34:17 Yeah.

00:34:17 --> 00:34:20 But because that's the way atonement is going to be accomplished.

00:34:20 --> 00:34:20 Wow.

00:34:20 --> 00:34:23 And that's how far the compassionate father is willing to go.

00:34:24 --> 00:34:28 So the agony of the father who is going to sacrifice his own

00:34:28 --> 00:34:30 son and nobody told him to do it.

00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 He's doing it out of that deep desire to bring us back to the

00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 tree of life on terms

00:34:35 --> 00:34:36 that will be good for all of us.

00:34:37 --> 00:34:37 So good.

00:34:37 --> 00:34:39 That's the picture I draw it from.

00:34:39 --> 00:34:40 The agony of sun,

00:34:40 --> 00:34:41 when we get the garden,

00:34:41 --> 00:34:42 although ironically,

00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 a lot of people deny that Jesus really agonizes because he's

00:34:45 --> 00:34:45 God and knows it's all

00:34:45 --> 00:34:46 going to work out in the end.

00:34:47 --> 00:34:49 So he's just going through some motions, which is nuts.

00:34:49 --> 00:34:52 No, totally, because he's sweating drops of blood.

00:34:52 --> 00:34:52 Detail.

00:34:53 --> 00:34:54 That's crazy.

00:34:55 --> 00:34:55 But I've got,

00:34:55 --> 00:34:55 I mean,

00:34:55 --> 00:34:59 I've got pictures of Jesus is resting in perfect peace because

00:34:59 --> 00:35:00 he is trusting the

00:35:00 --> 00:35:02 father as he prays in the garden.

00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 It's just, I mean, that's how far things can go.

00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 We understand the agony of the son.

00:35:06 --> 00:35:08 I think we miss the agony of the father.

00:35:08 --> 00:35:08 And,

00:35:09 --> 00:35:09 and I,

00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 I think as a compassionate God,

00:35:11 --> 00:35:13 if I think of the Hosea Gomer story,

00:35:13 --> 00:35:16 which is another picture of the character of God that leads off

00:35:16 --> 00:35:17 the whole minor

00:35:17 --> 00:35:18 prophets book of the 12th,

00:35:18 --> 00:35:23 It's the agony of Hosea as his wife is going off into

00:35:23 --> 00:35:24 prostitution and what he's

00:35:24 --> 00:35:25 willing to do to bring her back.

00:35:26 --> 00:35:26 But again,

00:35:26 --> 00:35:30 the feelings of a man who loves his wife and seeing her and

00:35:30 --> 00:35:31 what he has to do.

00:35:31 --> 00:35:36 So, yeah, the agony of the father, I think, is essential to bring into.

00:35:36 --> 00:35:37 And it's not just agony.

00:35:37 --> 00:35:38 There's justice as well.

00:35:38 --> 00:35:39 Yeah, right.

00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 But we've got to get the agony of father in there.

00:35:48 --> 00:35:49 Yeah, that's that's so good.

00:35:50 --> 00:35:51 I love your view,

00:35:51 --> 00:35:51 Gary,

00:35:51 --> 00:35:52 because to me,

00:35:52 --> 00:35:55 it's such an elegant and simple way to sort of ease the tension

00:35:55 --> 00:35:57 of that question of

00:35:57 --> 00:35:59 what is the father doing to the son on the cross?

00:35:59 --> 00:35:59 No,

00:35:59 --> 00:36:02 it's instead drawing our attention to what are the father,

00:36:02 --> 00:36:06 the son and the spirit doing together on the cross?

00:36:06 --> 00:36:06 That's correct.

00:36:07 --> 00:36:07 I love that.

00:36:07 --> 00:36:07 I love,

00:36:08 --> 00:36:10 I love what you're doing there because you know,

00:36:10 --> 00:36:14 it's totally reframing the context of the story and it just

00:36:14 --> 00:36:15 highlights to me how

00:36:15 --> 00:36:18 important it is to understand this stuff because it's understandings and

00:36:18 --> 00:36:22 misunderstandings that separate it from us thinking that God

00:36:22 --> 00:36:23 has forced his own son

00:36:23 --> 00:36:25 to die for the sins of other people.

00:36:25 --> 00:36:27 And then while the son is hanging on the cross,

00:36:27 --> 00:36:29 it's like the father's standing behind him,

00:36:29 --> 00:36:33 whipping him with this spiritual metaphysical wrath whip and

00:36:33 --> 00:36:34 Instead,

00:36:34 --> 00:36:35 it's believing the Father,

00:36:35 --> 00:36:36 the Son,

00:36:36 --> 00:36:37 the Holy Spirit,

00:36:37 --> 00:36:41 the Trinity knew from the dawn of time before humans existed

00:36:41 --> 00:36:42 that this would be

00:36:42 --> 00:36:42 their plan.

00:36:42 --> 00:36:44 They would suffer this horrible death,

00:36:45 --> 00:36:46 not just physical violence,

00:36:46 --> 00:36:48 but also bearing sin as well.

00:36:49 --> 00:36:51 The guilt and the shame of humans.

00:36:51 --> 00:36:51 They knew...

00:36:52 --> 00:36:53 They would have to face it.

00:36:53 --> 00:36:53 And,

00:36:53 --> 00:36:54 you know,

00:36:54 --> 00:36:54 of course,

00:36:55 --> 00:36:57 they could have just thrown up their hands and given up on

00:36:57 --> 00:36:59 humanity because they

00:36:59 --> 00:37:00 could see into the future.

00:37:00 --> 00:37:03 They knew if we make these humans, they're going to rebel.

00:37:03 --> 00:37:04 They're going to turn against us.

00:37:04 --> 00:37:06 They're going to unwittingly join the demonic,

00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 satanic rebellion against us.

00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 They could have just said, forget this.

00:37:11 --> 00:37:14 Let's start over on another planet, Mars or whatever else.

00:37:14 --> 00:37:15 But instead,

00:37:15 --> 00:37:16 the Father and the Son and the Spirit,

00:37:16 --> 00:37:19 they suffer long with humanity.

00:37:19 --> 00:37:23 They were willing to hang on a cross and die to have Jesus

00:37:24 --> 00:37:25 suffer this death.

00:37:25 --> 00:37:27 It's just, it's phenomenal to me and it's powerful.

00:37:27 --> 00:37:27 Well,

00:37:27 --> 00:37:29 that's where I like that song,

00:37:29 --> 00:37:31 how deep the Father's love,

00:37:31 --> 00:37:33 that he is willing to go through this.

00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 In the Passion of the Christ,

00:37:36 --> 00:37:37 at the end of the atonement,

00:37:37 --> 00:37:40 you see this huge tear falling from heaven.

00:37:40 --> 00:37:40 Wow.

00:37:41 --> 00:37:44 And that's the way they're trying in that movie.

00:37:44 --> 00:37:46 They're trying to show the agony of the father.

00:37:47 --> 00:37:50 And this tear, of course, changes everything when he hits the ground.

00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 But that's the father crying over what's happening.

00:37:53 --> 00:37:55 I actually like that picture.

00:37:55 --> 00:37:58 I just can't wait to see what The Chosen does with that.

00:37:58 --> 00:38:01 You know, I've only actually seen the first episode.

00:38:01 --> 00:38:02 Dude.

00:38:03 --> 00:38:05 Turn this thing off right now and get over there and start

00:38:05 --> 00:38:06 watching The Chosen.

00:38:06 --> 00:38:07 Oh, man.

00:38:08 --> 00:38:08 Okay.

00:38:08 --> 00:38:08 All right.

00:38:09 --> 00:38:09 Bye, everybody.

00:38:09 --> 00:38:10 See you later.

00:38:11 --> 00:38:11 You know,

00:38:12 --> 00:38:15 I'm actually thinking through when I have my son having

00:38:15 --> 00:38:16 designated times where we

00:38:16 --> 00:38:18 sit down and watch The Chosen and The Bible Project and learn.

00:38:20 --> 00:38:21 I just think it'd be a great way to learn.

00:38:21 --> 00:38:22 Of course.

00:38:22 --> 00:38:22 You know,

00:38:23 --> 00:38:25 one thing I like about what I've seen of The Chosen so far is

00:38:25 --> 00:38:26 there's so much heart

00:38:27 --> 00:38:28 and creativity put into it.

00:38:28 --> 00:38:30 And they do take some creative liberties,

00:38:30 --> 00:38:31 you know,

00:38:31 --> 00:38:31 with the source material.

00:38:31 --> 00:38:33 Oh, it's putting a lot of creativity.

00:38:33 --> 00:38:33 Right.

00:38:34 --> 00:38:34 Yeah.

00:38:34 --> 00:38:36 But it's keeping the structure of the story.

00:38:36 --> 00:38:40 And I think that's how we should read scripture is within the

00:38:41 --> 00:38:42 structure of the story.

00:38:42 --> 00:38:46 We bring our own experience into it and make it live.

00:38:46 --> 00:38:46 Yes.

00:38:46 --> 00:38:47 So good.

00:38:47 --> 00:38:50 I want to take it back to this conversation about the atonement

00:38:50 --> 00:38:51 and what happened

00:38:51 --> 00:38:51 on the cross,

00:38:51 --> 00:38:56 because I feel like a lot of times people can really get God's

00:38:56 --> 00:38:57 heart and his

00:38:57 --> 00:38:58 character wrong.

00:38:58 --> 00:39:03 They can look at God and they can see some of the judgments

00:39:03 --> 00:39:04 that he passed and some

00:39:04 --> 00:39:05 of the things that he did.

00:39:06 --> 00:39:10 And just see him as this violent and vengeful and angry God who

00:39:10 --> 00:39:11 hates sinners and

00:39:11 --> 00:39:12 wants to destroy sinners.

00:39:12 --> 00:39:16 And that's his main character that he presents in their mind.

00:39:17 --> 00:39:19 And when I talk to people who are struggling through this,

00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 my thought that I say to them is,

00:39:22 --> 00:39:23 look at the story.

00:39:23 --> 00:39:24 Look at the narrative.

00:39:24 --> 00:39:27 The story clearly tells us this God was strong.

00:39:28 --> 00:39:33 So concerned about you that he was willing to die.

00:39:33 --> 00:39:37 Like he, he willingly was willing for himself to die.

00:39:38 --> 00:39:40 You know, like we talk about, you know, God putting his son to death.

00:39:41 --> 00:39:45 Like the Trinity tells us that the father and the son and the

00:39:45 --> 00:39:46 spirit are one.

00:39:46 --> 00:39:47 They are God.

00:39:47 --> 00:39:49 It's we serve, we worship one God.

00:39:49 --> 00:39:51 And so it's like God,

00:39:51 --> 00:39:53 it wasn't that God was willing to kill somebody for you.

00:39:53 --> 00:39:55 God himself was willing to die to die.

00:39:56 --> 00:40:00 for you and so that should be a huge indicator for us about the

00:40:00 --> 00:40:01 nature of god's

00:40:01 --> 00:40:04 character whatever is going on behind the scenes in the

00:40:05 --> 00:40:07 spiritual metaphysical

00:40:07 --> 00:40:13 realm like it is a story of love it's a story of compassion

00:40:13 --> 00:40:14 it's a story of a god

00:40:14 --> 00:40:18 who was so it's like uh josh white says the god who was not

00:40:18 --> 00:40:19 content to live without

00:40:19 --> 00:40:23 you and so he died so that he could be with you it's incredible exactly

00:40:23 --> 00:40:24 Yeah,

00:40:24 --> 00:40:27 that connection of the full character of God,

00:40:27 --> 00:40:29 which is certainly compassion,

00:40:29 --> 00:40:30 but not only compassion,

00:40:31 --> 00:40:31 is critical.

00:40:32 --> 00:40:36 And that the depth of agony that the Father and Son are willing

00:40:36 --> 00:40:36 to go into,

00:40:37 --> 00:40:38 just to me,

00:40:38 --> 00:40:42 it only brings incredible gratitude and a genuine deep,

00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 that's the kind of God that I want to worship and serve.

00:40:45 --> 00:40:47 And I can take that God anywhere.

00:40:47 --> 00:40:48 Yeah, wow.

00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 all right so gary let's let's talk for a minute about song

00:40:51 --> 00:40:54 lyrics i remember when i

00:40:54 --> 00:40:56 was a youth pastor at camp i actually had some kids come up to

00:40:56 --> 00:40:57 me one time and say

00:40:57 --> 00:41:00 hey that song that we sang during the service there was a lyric

00:41:00 --> 00:41:01 the father turned

00:41:01 --> 00:41:04 his face away and you know how deep the father's love for us

00:41:05 --> 00:41:06 the lyric is how great

00:41:06 --> 00:41:09 the pain is searing loss the father turns his face away as

00:41:09 --> 00:41:10 wounds which mar the

00:41:10 --> 00:41:12 chosen one bring many sons to glory

00:41:13 --> 00:41:13 And then,

00:41:13 --> 00:41:14 you know,

00:41:14 --> 00:41:17 there's a Bethel song forever that says one final breath he

00:41:17 --> 00:41:19 gave as heaven looked away.

00:41:19 --> 00:41:23 And I had my students at camp ask me, is that actually what happened?

00:41:23 --> 00:41:26 Did God actually turn his face away from Jesus?

00:41:26 --> 00:41:28 Does God turn his face away from us?

00:41:28 --> 00:41:29 What's what's going on there?

00:41:30 --> 00:41:31 And so I want to turn to you, Gary.

00:41:32 --> 00:41:36 Do you think that this is a theologically accurate concept that

00:41:36 --> 00:41:37 we find in these songs?

00:41:37 --> 00:41:38 Yeah, that's a lot.

00:41:38 --> 00:41:41 It has to do with how you interpret the song lyric.

00:41:41 --> 00:41:42 Okay.

00:41:42 --> 00:41:42 Okay.

00:41:43 --> 00:41:47 So I just kind of go where I come from, and then we can unpack it a bit.

00:41:48 --> 00:41:52 In the garden, Adam and Eve suffered spiritual death immediately.

00:41:53 --> 00:41:54 Soon as they ate the fruit,

00:41:54 --> 00:41:56 when God comes and calls,

00:41:56 --> 00:41:57 they hide in the bushes.

00:41:57 --> 00:41:59 That relationship is dead.

00:41:59 --> 00:41:59 Now,

00:41:59 --> 00:42:00 God doesn't give up on them,

00:42:00 --> 00:42:02 and he does drive them out of the garden,

00:42:02 --> 00:42:03 but he goes with them.

00:42:04 --> 00:42:06 But spiritual death comes immediately.

00:42:07 --> 00:42:09 Physical deaths come for a long time later.

00:42:09 --> 00:42:12 It comes inevitably, but the first thing is spiritual death.

00:42:13 --> 00:42:15 I think Jesus went through that same order on the cross.

00:42:16 --> 00:42:17 And I'll grant quickly,

00:42:17 --> 00:42:19 this is a theological construction,

00:42:19 --> 00:42:21 not a direct teaching of scripture.

00:42:22 --> 00:42:26 But I think, and I do follow a recapitulation as one of my theories.

00:42:26 --> 00:42:28 I think Jesus had to go through the same things that Adam went

00:42:28 --> 00:42:29 through and we go through.

00:42:31 --> 00:42:33 So I think he does suffer spiritual death,

00:42:34 --> 00:42:38 which is a broken relationship between the father and the son.

00:42:40 --> 00:42:42 Not an ontological breaking.

00:42:42 --> 00:42:43 He didn't stop being God.

00:42:43 --> 00:42:44 The Trinity is not ended.

00:42:45 --> 00:42:46 But it's the sort of thing that happens in a marriage.

00:42:48 --> 00:42:48 Sure.

00:42:48 --> 00:42:49 And I've been at 53 years.

00:42:49 --> 00:42:52 We've never had a voice raised conflict.

00:42:52 --> 00:42:54 So I can't speak from our perspective,

00:42:54 --> 00:42:57 but I can speak to others which I've worked with.

00:42:58 --> 00:43:01 The marriage is real or husband and wife,

00:43:01 --> 00:43:04 but the husband and wife are so angry at each other.

00:43:04 --> 00:43:05 They can't even look at each other.

00:43:06 --> 00:43:08 That's a relational breaking.

00:43:09 --> 00:43:12 I think the Father and Son on the cross did have that

00:43:12 --> 00:43:14 relational breaking because

00:43:14 --> 00:43:16 Jesus took the full steps,

00:43:16 --> 00:43:18 including spiritual death in our place.

00:43:19 --> 00:43:21 Now, again, that's a theological construction.

00:43:21 --> 00:43:25 You cannot make that from just the Father turns his face away.

00:43:26 --> 00:43:29 Because in that context of Psalm 22,

00:43:29 --> 00:43:30 my God,

00:43:30 --> 00:43:31 my God,

00:43:31 --> 00:43:32 why are you forsaking me?

00:43:32 --> 00:43:34 The next parallel line is,

00:43:34 --> 00:43:39 why are you so far from saving me so far from my cries of anguish?

00:43:39 --> 00:43:42 I cry out by day, you do not anger by night, I find no rest.

00:43:42 --> 00:43:48 What that's in the context of Psalm 22 is you do not save me

00:43:48 --> 00:43:49 from my agony.

00:43:49 --> 00:43:49 Right.

00:43:49 --> 00:43:51 Yeah.

00:43:52 --> 00:43:59 Why do you forsake me does not, does not mean the father is gone away.

00:43:59 --> 00:44:00 Right.

00:44:00 --> 00:44:02 Or something like that in the context of the psalm.

00:44:02 --> 00:44:04 Yeah, he's still present.

00:44:04 --> 00:44:06 But I do think that that is a picture along with the three

00:44:06 --> 00:44:08 hours of darkness is

00:44:08 --> 00:44:11 that broken relationship that Jesus goes through.

00:44:11 --> 00:44:12 Yeah.

00:44:12 --> 00:44:14 Taking our spiritual death to himself.

00:44:14 --> 00:44:16 I think that's what's happening there.

00:44:16 --> 00:44:17 Okay, okay.

00:44:17 --> 00:44:17 But the fact that,

00:44:17 --> 00:44:18 well,

00:44:18 --> 00:44:20 God cannot look on sin,

00:44:20 --> 00:44:22 which again is a thing that comes into this,

00:44:22 --> 00:44:24 absolutely God can look on sin.

00:44:24 --> 00:44:25 He looked on Adam and Eve.

00:44:25 --> 00:44:27 He looks on, I mean, all kinds of people.

00:44:27 --> 00:44:29 Of course he looks on sin.

00:44:29 --> 00:44:29 Right.

00:44:29 --> 00:44:31 God can't be in the presence of sin.

00:44:31 --> 00:44:32 I hope you're wrong.

00:44:33 --> 00:44:34 But again, look at Adam and Eve.

00:44:34 --> 00:44:36 They sin, God comes.

00:44:36 --> 00:44:39 Isaiah sees God high and lift up in the temple.

00:44:39 --> 00:44:42 God is coming to the sinner to bring him cleansing.

00:44:43 --> 00:44:45 Yeah, God can absolutely be in the presence of sin.

00:44:45 --> 00:44:45 Mm-hmm.

00:44:46 --> 00:44:52 What he can't do is be in sin and have it unchanged over the long haul.

00:44:52 --> 00:44:53 Okay.

00:44:54 --> 00:44:54 Interesting.

00:44:54 --> 00:44:58 Because his power is going to either clean you up or end up

00:44:58 --> 00:45:00 with you driven away

00:45:00 --> 00:45:01 because you can't stand being in that.

00:45:01 --> 00:45:05 So I don't think the father turns his face away is saying

00:45:05 --> 00:45:07 necessarily that it's

00:45:07 --> 00:45:08 spiritual death,

00:45:08 --> 00:45:09 but I do think that's indicated there.

00:45:10 --> 00:45:10 Okay.

00:45:10 --> 00:45:10 So...

00:45:11 --> 00:45:11 Yeah.

00:45:11 --> 00:45:14 The father turns his face away just absolutely quoting scripture.

00:45:14 --> 00:45:16 So I can't really complain about that lyric.

00:45:16 --> 00:45:17 Right.

00:45:17 --> 00:45:18 Heaven turns his face.

00:45:18 --> 00:45:19 What verse do you get that from?

00:45:19 --> 00:45:22 Psalm 22 where he says, oh, why are you forsaking me?

00:45:22 --> 00:45:23 Sorry, that's not quoting scripture.

00:45:23 --> 00:45:24 I take that back.

00:45:24 --> 00:45:25 Yeah, that's okay.

00:45:26 --> 00:45:28 So this is a concept that's kind of new for me.

00:45:28 --> 00:45:29 I haven't heard it put this way.

00:45:29 --> 00:45:31 Can I pick at it a little bit?

00:45:31 --> 00:45:31 Yeah.

00:45:45 --> 00:45:47 I just want to make sure that I'm understanding where you're

00:45:47 --> 00:45:49 coming from and what

00:45:49 --> 00:45:49 you're meaning.

00:45:49 --> 00:45:51 So when I think of,

00:45:51 --> 00:45:57 you're talking about Jesus and God facing relational separation

00:45:57 --> 00:45:58 on the cross.

00:45:59 --> 00:46:01 And when I think about relational separation,

00:46:01 --> 00:46:06 I'm thinking about usually the reason it happens is because

00:46:07 --> 00:46:08 somebody has done

00:46:08 --> 00:46:08 something wrong.

00:46:09 --> 00:46:10 in a relationship.

00:46:10 --> 00:46:12 Somebody has sinned against someone else.

00:46:12 --> 00:46:16 A husband has sinned against his wife so greatly that there is

00:46:16 --> 00:46:16 this relational

00:46:16 --> 00:46:20 damage and separation because of what someone has done.

00:46:20 --> 00:46:20 Right.

00:46:21 --> 00:46:22 But Jesus didn't do anything.

00:46:22 --> 00:46:22 That's great.

00:46:22 --> 00:46:23 Yeah.

00:46:23 --> 00:46:24 So it's like,

00:46:24 --> 00:46:27 that's hard for me to parse what you're saying because it's

00:46:27 --> 00:46:28 like Jesus hasn't,

00:46:29 --> 00:46:30 he himself hasn't sinned.

00:46:30 --> 00:46:34 He himself hasn't done anything wrong to hurt the father.

00:46:34 --> 00:46:36 He hasn't done anything wrong to warrant separation.

00:46:36 --> 00:46:37 Exactly.

00:46:37 --> 00:46:37 Mm-hmm.

00:46:38 --> 00:46:38 Exactly.

00:46:38 --> 00:46:41 See, that's the sinless substitute.

00:46:42 --> 00:46:45 So the second Corinthians 521,

00:46:45 --> 00:46:49 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.

00:46:50 --> 00:46:50 Okay.

00:46:50 --> 00:46:53 I think that's far more than he just takes the guilt of sin.

00:46:53 --> 00:46:57 I think it makes him to be sin in some inexplicable way.

00:46:57 --> 00:46:58 Hmm.

00:46:58 --> 00:47:04 And so while he has done nothing personally to offend as our substitute,

00:47:04 --> 00:47:06 he does take that.

00:47:06 --> 00:47:08 And I think that's what leads to the spiritual death.

00:47:08 --> 00:47:13 I take a very high view of when it says he became sin for us.

00:47:13 --> 00:47:16 It's not just he paid the penalty for sin.

00:47:16 --> 00:47:18 He actually became sin for us.

00:47:18 --> 00:47:19 What Second Corinthians five says.

00:47:19 --> 00:47:20 I don't understand that.

00:47:20 --> 00:47:21 Wow.

00:47:21 --> 00:47:21 Yeah.

00:47:21 --> 00:47:22 How can that be?

00:47:23 --> 00:47:26 But I do know if you look at an honor-shame context,

00:47:27 --> 00:47:31 I've done a lot of stuff in Taiwan and Middle East,

00:47:32 --> 00:47:34 and I know a little bit about the honor-shame.

00:47:34 --> 00:47:38 When I go to somebody who has committed a shameful act and I go

00:47:38 --> 00:47:39 associate with them,

00:47:40 --> 00:47:42 I am bringing shame on myself,

00:47:42 --> 00:47:44 even though I've done nothing wrong.

00:47:44 --> 00:47:45 In one sense,

00:47:45 --> 00:47:49 I've done nothing to deserve that shame just by associating

00:47:49 --> 00:47:50 with a shamed person.

00:47:50 --> 00:47:53 Of course, that same thing is true in the cancel culture today.

00:47:53 --> 00:47:53 Right.

00:47:53 --> 00:47:54 Yeah.

00:47:54 --> 00:47:56 You know, say you've been canceled and I go befriend them.

00:47:57 --> 00:47:58 Now I get canceled.

00:47:58 --> 00:47:59 Guilty by association.

00:47:59 --> 00:48:02 And that's the analogy I use for what happens on the cross.

00:48:02 --> 00:48:04 But no analogy explains, I think, what happened.

00:48:04 --> 00:48:05 Okay.

00:48:05 --> 00:48:05 Yeah.

00:48:05 --> 00:48:05 No.

00:48:05 --> 00:48:05 So,

00:48:05 --> 00:48:06 so I,

00:48:06 --> 00:48:11 I use the word metaphysical a lot on this show and sometimes

00:48:11 --> 00:48:11 like I doubt,

00:48:12 --> 00:48:12 uh,

00:48:12 --> 00:48:13 my usage of words.

00:48:13 --> 00:48:14 Okay.

00:48:14 --> 00:48:14 You know,

00:48:14 --> 00:48:15 my vocabulary,

00:48:15 --> 00:48:15 it's like,

00:48:15 --> 00:48:15 okay,

00:48:15 --> 00:48:17 do I really know what this word means?

00:48:17 --> 00:48:21 I actually Googled metaphysical recently and the definition was

00:48:21 --> 00:48:23 things outside of

00:48:23 --> 00:48:27 the Norman human realm of understanding and logic.

00:48:27 --> 00:48:29 So it checks out, right?

00:48:29 --> 00:48:30 It's proper usage.

00:48:30 --> 00:48:30 Right.

00:48:31 --> 00:48:32 So when we're talking about, yeah,

00:48:32 --> 00:48:35 something metaphysical that's happening behind the scenes it's

00:48:35 --> 00:48:36 it's something in

00:48:36 --> 00:48:40 the spiritual realm that as humans we can't really comprehend

00:48:40 --> 00:48:41 what's going on on

00:48:41 --> 00:48:44 the cross so we're just doing our best with the clues that we

00:48:44 --> 00:48:46 have in scripture

00:48:46 --> 00:48:49 trying to piece together this this puzzle and so yeah there's a

00:48:49 --> 00:48:50 lot of mystery

00:48:51 --> 00:48:52 there's a lot of mystery to it

00:48:52 --> 00:48:53 Right.

00:48:53 --> 00:48:53 You know,

00:48:53 --> 00:48:54 thinking about that song lyric again,

00:48:54 --> 00:48:56 the father turned his face away.

00:48:57 --> 00:49:01 One way I can parse it out and make it make sense is if I think

00:49:01 --> 00:49:02 of it not as the

00:49:02 --> 00:49:06 father turning away in disgust from Jesus and saying,

00:49:06 --> 00:49:06 oh,

00:49:06 --> 00:49:07 you know,

00:49:07 --> 00:49:08 how how dare you,

00:49:08 --> 00:49:08 Jesus?

00:49:08 --> 00:49:09 How dare you commit these sins?

00:49:09 --> 00:49:11 Because he didn't commit the sins.

00:49:11 --> 00:49:13 Instead, what if it's the father?

00:49:14 --> 00:49:17 Like if you were forced to watch the execution of someone that

00:49:17 --> 00:49:18 you loved and

00:49:20 --> 00:49:21 That would be hard.

00:49:21 --> 00:49:22 You wouldn't be able to look at that.

00:49:23 --> 00:49:26 You would turn your face away because you wouldn't be able to

00:49:26 --> 00:49:28 bear the burden of

00:49:28 --> 00:49:31 watching the person that you love die in such a horrible way.

00:49:31 --> 00:49:32 So maybe that's it.

00:49:32 --> 00:49:36 Maybe that's the heart of the song is God turning his face away

00:49:36 --> 00:49:37 because he can't bear to watch.

00:49:37 --> 00:49:40 The piece here is that the Gettys and Stuart Townend are very

00:49:41 --> 00:49:41 clear in their

00:49:42 --> 00:49:43 theological perspective,

00:49:43 --> 00:49:46 and they come from a fairly staunch reform perspective and do

00:49:47 --> 00:49:47 believe that Father

00:49:47 --> 00:49:49 poured his wrath out on the Son.

00:49:49 --> 00:49:49 I see.

00:49:50 --> 00:49:50 Okay.

00:49:50 --> 00:49:52 So knowing their theology,

00:49:52 --> 00:49:58 do we interpret songs by the author's intent or do we interpret

00:49:58 --> 00:49:59 songs by the

00:50:00 --> 00:50:01 singer's response?

00:50:01 --> 00:50:02 Of course, it's a bigger question.

00:50:02 --> 00:50:05 It's probably we should interpret things by the way that they

00:50:05 --> 00:50:06 were written.

00:50:06 --> 00:50:07 So if we're going there,

00:50:07 --> 00:50:10 I think the next question I would have is,

00:50:10 --> 00:50:12 is this something that is important?

00:50:12 --> 00:50:18 Like should pastors care about possibly incorrect theology in

00:50:18 --> 00:50:19 the worship songs

00:50:19 --> 00:50:20 their church sings?

00:50:20 --> 00:50:20 Yes.

00:50:20 --> 00:50:21 Okay.

00:50:21 --> 00:50:21 All right.

00:50:22 --> 00:50:23 Yes, absolutely.

00:50:23 --> 00:50:23 Okay.

00:50:24 --> 00:50:24 Yeah.

00:50:24 --> 00:50:29 So I saw that Evan had mentioned in his Facebook post seven

00:50:29 --> 00:50:30 years ago about all this,

00:50:31 --> 00:50:34 that his church changed the lyrics to some of these songs,

00:50:34 --> 00:50:35 like the song forever by Bethel.

00:50:36 --> 00:50:38 He revised it instead of one final breath.

00:50:38 --> 00:50:40 He gave as heaven looked away.

00:50:40 --> 00:50:42 The son of God was laid in darkness.

00:50:42 --> 00:50:45 He flipped some stuff around and instead it says one final breath.

00:50:45 --> 00:50:50 He gave the son of God was slain and heaven's light was laid in darkness.

00:50:50 --> 00:50:51 What do you think, Gary?

00:50:51 --> 00:50:56 Is it appropriate for us to rearrange these things if we are

00:50:56 --> 00:50:57 convicted about the

00:50:57 --> 00:50:58 theology in the song?

00:50:58 --> 00:51:00 Well, there's copyright issues.

00:51:00 --> 00:51:03 For legality, you have to worry about some things there.

00:51:03 --> 00:51:04 Okay, yeah, I take it back.

00:51:04 --> 00:51:05 I don't want to get anyone in trouble.

00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 Evan did not change the song lyrics.

00:51:08 --> 00:51:12 I will stand with the idea that as long as I'm giving credit,

00:51:12 --> 00:51:16 I think I can switch some lyrics as long as I indicate that to

00:51:16 --> 00:51:17 the people and why

00:51:17 --> 00:51:17 I'm doing it.

00:51:17 --> 00:51:17 Okay.

00:51:17 --> 00:51:17 OK.

00:51:17 --> 00:51:18 All right.

00:51:18 --> 00:51:20 Because there's a teaching in that,

00:51:20 --> 00:51:20 too,

00:51:20 --> 00:51:22 because everybody's probably heard that song.

00:51:22 --> 00:51:24 And then why are you changing the lyrics?

00:51:24 --> 00:51:25 I do the same thing with reckless love.

00:51:25 --> 00:51:27 I will never sing God's reckless love.

00:51:27 --> 00:51:29 I will sing his faithful love.

00:51:29 --> 00:51:31 I know what they're trying to get out with the idea of reckless,

00:51:31 --> 00:51:32 but God is not reckless.

00:51:32 --> 00:51:33 Yeah.

00:51:33 --> 00:51:33 Right.

00:51:34 --> 00:51:34 Or,

00:51:34 --> 00:51:34 you know,

00:51:34 --> 00:51:37 the the the sloppy wet kiss song,

00:51:37 --> 00:51:40 which I first time I heard that I just had a heart attack.

00:51:41 --> 00:51:42 Golly.

00:51:42 --> 00:51:45 You know, God is not some dumb dog trying to slop on my face.

00:51:46 --> 00:51:46 Oh, my gosh.

00:51:46 --> 00:51:46 Yes.

00:51:46 --> 00:51:50 This is this is what our audience has been waiting for is Gary Brashear's

00:51:50 --> 00:51:53 definitive answer on the sloppy wet kiss question.

00:51:54 --> 00:51:54 Oh, yeah.

00:51:55 --> 00:51:55 I love it, man.

00:51:56 --> 00:51:56 So good.

00:51:56 --> 00:51:57 Yeah.

00:51:57 --> 00:51:58 I love your insight on this.

00:51:59 --> 00:52:02 It's crazy because you can actually find like Internet debates

00:52:02 --> 00:52:04 that are miles long about that.

00:52:04 --> 00:52:04 But see,

00:52:04 --> 00:52:06 what we have to do is when we do those things,

00:52:06 --> 00:52:06 yes,

00:52:06 --> 00:52:08 let's differ on those things.

00:52:08 --> 00:52:08 Right.

00:52:09 --> 00:52:11 But we have to do it around the communion table.

00:52:12 --> 00:52:15 We have to do it as members of the family who are committed to

00:52:15 --> 00:52:16 die for each other.

00:52:16 --> 00:52:16 Right.

00:52:17 --> 00:52:17 Yes.

00:52:17 --> 00:52:20 And so we can have family arguments around the table,

00:52:20 --> 00:52:22 but we're still sitting around the table.

00:52:22 --> 00:52:24 And that's the piece that is not happening,

00:52:24 --> 00:52:25 especially when you're doing it on the Internet.

00:52:25 --> 00:52:26 Hmm.

00:52:26 --> 00:52:28 We are not sitting around the communion table.

00:52:28 --> 00:52:29 So are you saying,

00:52:29 --> 00:52:29 Gary,

00:52:29 --> 00:52:32 that it is perhaps not the best way for us to develop our

00:52:32 --> 00:52:33 theology to do it through

00:52:34 --> 00:52:35 Facebook debates?

00:52:35 --> 00:52:39 You know, I think that's a horrible way to develop your theology.

00:52:40 --> 00:52:40 OK, right.

00:52:40 --> 00:52:41 Makes sense.

00:52:41 --> 00:52:42 Unless you're friends,

00:52:42 --> 00:52:43 you know,

00:52:43 --> 00:52:44 and you're just not in the same area,

00:52:44 --> 00:52:47 but internet wars are nothing more.

00:52:47 --> 00:52:47 It just,

00:52:48 --> 00:52:51 we need to read the second half of Ephesians 4 regularly

00:52:51 --> 00:52:52 because anger has now

00:52:52 --> 00:52:55 become a virtue instead of an extremely dangerous thing we need

00:52:55 --> 00:52:56 to resolve quickly.

00:52:57 --> 00:53:00 Forgiveness and gratitude are still Christian virtues.

00:53:00 --> 00:53:00 Well said.

00:53:01 --> 00:53:03 As well as justice and righteousness.

00:53:03 --> 00:53:03 Yes.

00:53:15 --> 00:53:16 So Gary,

00:53:16 --> 00:53:19 another big question we want to ask is,

00:53:19 --> 00:53:23 was Jesus actually forsaken when he was on the cross?

00:53:23 --> 00:53:24 On the cross,

00:53:24 --> 00:53:25 Jesus utters those words,

00:53:26 --> 00:53:26 my God,

00:53:26 --> 00:53:27 my God,

00:53:27 --> 00:53:29 why have you forsaken me?

00:53:29 --> 00:53:32 We're going to ask, what do those words actually mean?

00:53:32 --> 00:53:33 And to set it up,

00:53:33 --> 00:53:36 I'm going to read more of Evan's sermon prep notes that he

00:53:36 --> 00:53:37 posted to Facebook back

00:53:37 --> 00:53:37 in 2014.

00:53:38 --> 00:53:39 This is from Evan's post.

00:53:40 --> 00:53:44 It's interesting that Jesus never addressed his Father as God

00:53:44 --> 00:53:45 in all his years of ministry.

00:53:46 --> 00:53:48 He spoke of God when speaking to others,

00:53:48 --> 00:53:51 but never in his own communication with the Father.

00:53:52 --> 00:53:52 In fact,

00:53:52 --> 00:53:56 there are two occasions on the cross where he addressed his Father.

00:53:56 --> 00:53:58 Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do.

00:53:58 --> 00:54:01 And Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

00:54:01 --> 00:54:04 And this highlights still further the distinction from his

00:54:04 --> 00:54:06 quote of Psalm 22,

00:54:06 --> 00:54:06 my God,

00:54:06 --> 00:54:07 my God,

00:54:07 --> 00:54:08 why have you forsaken me?

00:54:09 --> 00:54:12 Now in Jesus dwell all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

00:54:13 --> 00:54:19 This is called hypostasis, the fully divine humanness of Jesus.

00:54:19 --> 00:54:24 So if there was an actual separation within the Trinity at the cross,

00:54:24 --> 00:54:26 if Yahweh abandoned Jesus,

00:54:27 --> 00:54:30 then either Jesus' Trinitarian theology was weak because he

00:54:30 --> 00:54:31 said God and not Father,

00:54:32 --> 00:54:36 or Jesus managed to separate his divine human natures

00:54:36 --> 00:54:37 That is to say,

00:54:37 --> 00:54:41 Jesus's divine spirit stayed divine and Jesus's human soul was

00:54:41 --> 00:54:41 cast away.

00:54:42 --> 00:54:44 And the heretics at Athanasia were right.

00:54:45 --> 00:54:45 But,

00:54:45 --> 00:54:46 Evans says,

00:54:46 --> 00:54:51 the Athanasian heretics were wrong because the man Jesus is God.

00:54:52 --> 00:54:55 Then there are Jesus's own words the night he was betrayed.

00:54:55 --> 00:54:56 He said,

00:54:56 --> 00:54:58 when you all run away from me and leave me alone,

00:54:58 --> 00:55:02 I won't be alone because my father is with me.

00:55:02 --> 00:55:07 So what did Jesus mean when he shouted those God forsaken words?

00:55:08 --> 00:55:08 What do you think, Gary?

00:55:09 --> 00:55:10 Why did Jesus say those words?

00:55:11 --> 00:55:14 Did God actually forsake Jesus on the cross?

00:55:14 --> 00:55:16 I think he's actually quoting Psalm 22 there.

00:55:18 --> 00:55:19 And I think that's what he's doing.

00:55:19 --> 00:55:24 And when he does that in that context,

00:55:24 --> 00:55:29 you cannot take that one line apart from the rest of the psalm.

00:55:29 --> 00:55:34 The example that I use is Doe, a deer.

00:55:35 --> 00:55:35 Right.

00:55:35 --> 00:55:35 Yeah.

00:55:36 --> 00:55:36 And you think.

00:55:37 --> 00:55:38 Ray, a drop of golden sun.

00:55:39 --> 00:55:39 Why?

00:55:39 --> 00:55:41 Julie Andrews is why.

00:55:41 --> 00:55:41 Yeah.

00:55:41 --> 00:55:44 Yeah, and even people have never seen the movie.

00:55:44 --> 00:55:45 Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:55:45 --> 00:55:48 Doh, a deer, a female deer.

00:55:48 --> 00:55:50 So when Jesus cries on the cross,

00:55:50 --> 00:55:51 that Eloi,

00:55:51 --> 00:55:52 Eloi,

00:55:52 --> 00:55:53 lama sabachthani,

00:55:53 --> 00:55:54 everybody,

00:55:54 --> 00:55:57 their mind immediately goes to the rest of the psalm.

00:55:58 --> 00:55:58 Okay.

00:55:58 --> 00:56:01 And it's a powerful way of crying out his agony.

00:56:02 --> 00:56:02 Wow.

00:56:03 --> 00:56:04 So would you say in this moment,

00:56:05 --> 00:56:07 as he's crying out Psalm 22 on the cross,

00:56:07 --> 00:56:10 that he's trying to open up people's eyes to the Trinitarian

00:56:10 --> 00:56:11 reality of the Father,

00:56:11 --> 00:56:12 Son,

00:56:12 --> 00:56:13 Spirit being present in this moment?

00:56:14 --> 00:56:15 That may be a little much,

00:56:16 --> 00:56:20 but it's coming out of his rich theology that brings him to the cross.

00:56:21 --> 00:56:27 okay and he's been contemplating i think the whole time as he's

00:56:27 --> 00:56:27 going through all

00:56:27 --> 00:56:31 of this he's been remembering the mission that he's on right

00:56:32 --> 00:56:32 and we get hints of

00:56:32 --> 00:56:36 that from time to time in the gospel narratives and this is one

00:56:36 --> 00:56:36 where he's on the

00:56:36 --> 00:56:41 cross just like joe jonah in the belly of the fish right his

00:56:41 --> 00:56:42 mind is going to

00:56:42 --> 00:56:46 scripture and so he he sings out or screams out

00:56:47 --> 00:56:51 cries out this one phrase, but all the rest of that song is in there.

00:56:51 --> 00:56:52 Right.

00:56:52 --> 00:56:53 And as we know,

00:56:53 --> 00:56:57 people unpack Psalm 22 and a number of those things end up

00:56:57 --> 00:56:58 speaking to things that

00:56:58 --> 00:56:59 are happening around the cross.

00:57:00 --> 00:57:01 But I think what he's doing there is...

00:57:02 --> 00:57:05 When he thinks, my God, my God, why are you forsaking me?

00:57:05 --> 00:57:08 I'm in agony and I've got to go through this whole thing.

00:57:09 --> 00:57:09 I've got to drip.

00:57:09 --> 00:57:13 I've got to finish up the cup and the cup there is a cup of

00:57:13 --> 00:57:14 suffering and death

00:57:14 --> 00:57:16 identified back in Matthew 20.

00:57:16 --> 00:57:20 The cup is not the cup of wrath because he said the disciples

00:57:20 --> 00:57:21 will also drink this

00:57:21 --> 00:57:23 cup back in Matthew 20.

00:57:24 --> 00:57:27 So he's got to drink the fullness of the cup of suffering and death.

00:57:28 --> 00:57:30 I don't think he's drinking the cup of God's wrath.

00:57:31 --> 00:57:33 Just because it's a cup doesn't mean it's the cup of wrath.

00:57:34 --> 00:57:35 That metaphor gets used in a lot of ways.

00:57:36 --> 00:57:36 Yeah, right.

00:57:36 --> 00:57:38 It's a biblical design pattern.

00:57:39 --> 00:57:44 So he has got to drink down fully the fullness of death as the Messiah.

00:57:44 --> 00:57:47 And it's agonizing in many ways.

00:57:47 --> 00:57:49 So I think he's singing that whole song,

00:57:50 --> 00:57:52 but only quoting that one verse,

00:57:52 --> 00:57:54 or at least Matthew and Mark only do that.

00:57:54 --> 00:57:58 And I think he probably does just scream out the one verse, one phrase.

00:57:58 --> 00:57:58 Right.

00:57:59 --> 00:58:04 So what I'm hearing in all of this is it's not a picture of

00:58:04 --> 00:58:06 Jesus being pushed away

00:58:06 --> 00:58:07 by God,

00:58:07 --> 00:58:09 being rejected by God,

00:58:09 --> 00:58:10 being abandoned by God.

00:58:11 --> 00:58:12 But actually it's the Father,

00:58:12 --> 00:58:13 the Son,

00:58:13 --> 00:58:15 the Spirit together on the cross together.

00:58:16 --> 00:58:23 agonizing saving the world but in his human state jesus is able

00:58:23 --> 00:58:25 to feel the feeling

00:58:25 --> 00:58:29 of abandonment that there's something going on there there's

00:58:29 --> 00:58:30 something happening to

00:58:30 --> 00:58:33 jesus in this moment where he is able to experience what it

00:58:33 --> 00:58:35 feels like to be

00:58:35 --> 00:58:39 separated from god to have that wall of separation we talk a lot about

00:58:40 --> 00:58:40 In preaching,

00:58:40 --> 00:58:41 you know,

00:58:41 --> 00:58:45 we talk about how sin creates this wall of separation between us and God.

00:58:46 --> 00:58:49 And so it's not this picture of Jesus sinning and that creating

00:58:49 --> 00:58:50 a wall of separation,

00:58:50 --> 00:58:53 but it's him taking on our sin.

00:58:53 --> 00:58:57 It's him absorbing the guilt and the shame and the burden.

00:58:58 --> 00:59:04 of every rape and murder and theft and abuse and betrayal,

00:59:04 --> 00:59:08 all of these horrible things that humans have done,

00:59:08 --> 00:59:10 Jesus takes that onto himself.

00:59:10 --> 00:59:13 And because of that, he experiences this distance.

00:59:14 --> 00:59:14 I believe that's true.

00:59:15 --> 00:59:18 This feeling of distance from the Father and from the Spirit.

00:59:18 --> 00:59:23 So he's not forsaken, but he's able to feel forsaken.

00:59:23 --> 00:59:25 In that moment, he feels forsaken.

00:59:25 --> 00:59:25 Yeah.

00:59:26 --> 00:59:30 Now, he is forsaken in the sense that he's not saved in the moment.

00:59:30 --> 00:59:30 Right.

00:59:31 --> 00:59:33 God doesn't pull Jesus down from off the cross.

00:59:34 --> 00:59:37 So at the moment, he is not delivered from his agony.

00:59:37 --> 00:59:39 So in that sense, he is forsaken.

00:59:40 --> 00:59:40 But again,

00:59:40 --> 00:59:41 like you say,

00:59:41 --> 00:59:42 you have to look at the whole picture,

00:59:42 --> 00:59:43 not just the one moment.

00:59:44 --> 00:59:44 That makes sense.

00:59:44 --> 00:59:45 Because I don't want to take down the...

00:59:47 --> 00:59:49 The forsakenness of what's happened there.

00:59:49 --> 00:59:50 Right.

00:59:50 --> 00:59:53 Well, I do think the father is present with him the whole time.

00:59:54 --> 00:59:57 There's a sense in which because he is in the depths of

00:59:57 --> 00:59:58 couldn't be in deeper agony

00:59:59 --> 01:00:01 and God does not deliver him.

01:00:01 --> 01:00:04 That's what he cried out in the garden or take this cup away from me.

01:00:05 --> 01:00:05 Right.

01:00:05 --> 01:00:07 It's going to be horrible, horrible, horrible.

01:00:08 --> 01:00:12 But he's going to go with it because that is the plan and he's agreeing.

01:00:12 --> 01:00:14 But it's just going to be an awful journey.

01:00:14 --> 01:00:18 And that's true for us as followers of Jesus is if we follow him,

01:00:19 --> 01:00:22 it's going to take us many times into places of the deepest agony.

01:00:23 --> 01:00:26 And we go there in a certain sense with a sense of joy,

01:00:26 --> 01:00:27 even in the agony.

01:00:27 --> 01:00:27 Right.

01:00:28 --> 01:00:31 Because we know we're sharing and completing the sufferings of Jesus,

01:00:31 --> 01:00:32 as Paul says in Colossians.

01:00:33 --> 01:00:37 We do complete his sufferings by doing the same kind of thing,

01:00:37 --> 01:00:41 going willingly into agony for the sake of redemptive purpose.

01:00:41 --> 01:00:42 That's really good.

01:00:53 --> 01:00:57 You know, I'm reading some of Evan's comments here again on Psalm 22.

01:00:57 --> 01:01:00 He's talking about Jesus fulfilling that messianic identity.

01:01:01 --> 01:01:02 In Psalm 22,

01:01:02 --> 01:01:03 he writes,

01:01:03 --> 01:01:04 it's spine tingling,

01:01:04 --> 01:01:05 pierced hands,

01:01:05 --> 01:01:06 dehydration,

01:01:06 --> 01:01:07 emaciation,

01:01:07 --> 01:01:09 even Jesus' clothing.

01:01:09 --> 01:01:10 made the prophecy.

01:01:10 --> 01:01:13 But later on in the Psalm in verse 24,

01:01:13 --> 01:01:13 he says,

01:01:14 --> 01:01:18 for he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one.

01:01:18 --> 01:01:20 He has not hidden his face from him,

01:01:20 --> 01:01:23 but he has listened to his cry for help.

01:01:23 --> 01:01:26 So it's basically, it's right there in the Psalm.

01:01:26 --> 01:01:30 It's saying that God has not hidden his face from him,

01:01:30 --> 01:01:32 but he has listened to his cry from help.

01:01:32 --> 01:01:33 Even though

01:01:33 --> 01:01:36 There's this feeling of God-forsakenness that's overwhelming.

01:01:36 --> 01:01:38 Yahweh has not hidden his face from him.

01:01:39 --> 01:01:40 That's pretty mind-blowing.

01:01:40 --> 01:01:41 It is mind-blowing.

01:01:42 --> 01:01:44 And I do think he's going through spiritual death,

01:01:44 --> 01:01:44 which,

01:01:44 --> 01:01:45 but I'm not going to,

01:01:45 --> 01:01:45 you know,

01:01:45 --> 01:01:47 that's my construction,

01:01:47 --> 01:01:48 not a direct biblical teaching.

01:01:48 --> 01:01:49 Right, right.

01:01:49 --> 01:01:52 So I think that relationship has been broken,

01:01:52 --> 01:01:57 and that's a sense in which he's feeling forsaken in those

01:01:57 --> 01:01:58 three hours there on the cross,

01:01:58 --> 01:01:59 because he is.

01:01:59 --> 01:02:00 That relationship is broken.

01:02:01 --> 01:02:01 Right.

01:02:02 --> 01:02:07 So what we're saying is essentially God didn't forsake Jesus,

01:02:07 --> 01:02:09 but in Jesus's humanity,

01:02:09 --> 01:02:14 he was allowed to suffer and to feel as if he was abandoned.

01:02:14 --> 01:02:15 I mean, would you say that was accurate?

01:02:16 --> 01:02:18 I'd say one, he chose to feel that.

01:02:18 --> 01:02:20 It's not that he allowed to do it.

01:02:21 --> 01:02:22 I see him more active than that.

01:02:22 --> 01:02:27 But yeah, that spiritual death, I think he does do that.

01:02:27 --> 01:02:30 But this is Gary saying, I think, not Bible says.

01:02:31 --> 01:02:33 Well, I know for one, I appreciate your insight.

01:02:33 --> 01:02:37 I love all this because I think it helps people understand that

01:02:37 --> 01:02:39 Jesus really did

01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 struggle with the same things that they do as humanity.

01:02:42 --> 01:02:45 Jesus himself went through that dark night of the soul.

01:02:46 --> 01:02:46 You know,

01:02:46 --> 01:02:48 I was recently talking to a friend of mine,

01:02:49 --> 01:02:49 really,

01:02:49 --> 01:02:50 really tragic story.

01:02:50 --> 01:02:51 Young guy.

01:02:51 --> 01:02:54 I used to be a volunteer in my youth group.

01:02:54 --> 01:02:57 Him and his wife were younger than me and my wife.

01:02:57 --> 01:02:59 They were in their mid-20s.

01:02:59 --> 01:03:02 And his wife just died from COVID.

01:03:03 --> 01:03:05 It was just, yeah, just tragic.

01:03:06 --> 01:03:07 Really, really terrible.

01:03:07 --> 01:03:07 And

01:03:08 --> 01:03:11 As I was chatting with him recently and just trying to encourage him,

01:03:11 --> 01:03:12 I ended up telling him,

01:03:13 --> 01:03:13 listen,

01:03:13 --> 01:03:13 man,

01:03:13 --> 01:03:17 I know for a fact that Jesus is with you right now in the

01:03:17 --> 01:03:18 depths of your struggle.

01:03:18 --> 01:03:22 But I also know that as you're going through this,

01:03:22 --> 01:03:23 the pain of this,

01:03:23 --> 01:03:26 there's going to be a lot of times where it feels like Jesus

01:03:26 --> 01:03:27 isn't with you.

01:03:27 --> 01:03:29 There's going to be a lot of times where you feel like God has

01:03:29 --> 01:03:30 forsaken you.

01:03:30 --> 01:03:32 And I just want you to know that that's okay.

01:03:33 --> 01:03:36 And he's still there, even though it doesn't always feel like he is.

01:03:36 --> 01:03:38 And that's where the body of Christ comes in,

01:03:38 --> 01:03:40 because we're not meant to suffer alone.

01:03:40 --> 01:03:42 And what you're doing,

01:03:42 --> 01:03:42 Aaron,

01:03:42 --> 01:03:45 with your friend is exactly what should be happening.

01:03:45 --> 01:03:48 When you come beside him, you are Christ to him.

01:03:49 --> 01:03:51 And he doesn't sense that,

01:03:52 --> 01:03:53 I don't know what to say,

01:03:53 --> 01:03:55 the spiritual connection in the moment.

01:03:56 --> 01:03:59 But when you're there with him, you are Christ with him.

01:03:59 --> 01:04:01 And that's where you need to corporate theology.

01:04:01 --> 01:04:03 You need to come into this process as well.

01:04:03 --> 01:04:04 Yeah.

01:04:04 --> 01:04:05 Yeah,

01:04:05 --> 01:04:08 one teaching that's been really helpful for me in this is Tim

01:04:08 --> 01:04:09 Mackey taught a

01:04:09 --> 01:04:13 sermon about Jesus the night he was in the garden when he was

01:04:13 --> 01:04:14 sweating those drops

01:04:14 --> 01:04:15 of blood.

01:04:15 --> 01:04:19 And he points out that as Jesus is sweating those drops of blood,

01:04:20 --> 01:04:24 what he's going through is actually what we could classify as a

01:04:24 --> 01:04:25 panic attack,

01:04:25 --> 01:04:27 as him dealing and struggling with anxiety.

01:04:27 --> 01:04:27 Yeah.

01:04:27 --> 01:04:28 Oh, yeah.

01:04:28 --> 01:04:28 Yeah.

01:04:28 --> 01:04:33 And so Tim mentions that anytime he himself struggles with anxiety,

01:04:33 --> 01:04:36 he actually pictures Jesus in the garden,

01:04:36 --> 01:04:38 kneeling right next to him,

01:04:38 --> 01:04:40 suffering along with him.

01:04:40 --> 01:04:44 And it's this powerful picture of the concept of the Emmanuel,

01:04:44 --> 01:04:45 you know,

01:04:45 --> 01:04:46 God with us.

01:04:46 --> 01:04:48 Tim Mackey is a decent Bible guy.

01:04:48 --> 01:04:49 Yeah, no, I think so.

01:04:51 --> 01:04:51 He's good.

01:04:52 --> 01:04:53 I love him.

01:04:53 --> 01:04:57 He's been really influential on me and has just been a blessing

01:04:57 --> 01:04:58 to me and so many others.

01:04:58 --> 01:05:00 So I'm definitely thankful for him.

01:05:01 --> 01:05:01 But going back to what he said,

01:05:01 --> 01:05:04 I think a lot of people actually really buck at these

01:05:04 --> 01:05:06 humanizing depictions of

01:05:06 --> 01:05:10 Jesus because they don't really want to see the image of Jesus weakened.

01:05:10 --> 01:05:12 So Gary Pastorly, how can we help people wrestle through this?

01:05:13 --> 01:05:19 And also, do you think there are dangers to humanizing Jesus too much?

01:05:19 --> 01:05:20 There's danger in both directions.

01:05:21 --> 01:05:24 In the theological tribes that I hang around with,

01:05:24 --> 01:05:28 the danger is far more on the side of docetism,

01:05:28 --> 01:05:29 the ancient heresy.

01:05:30 --> 01:05:32 We are so protective of the deity of Jesus,

01:05:32 --> 01:05:35 we don't allow the humanity of Jesus to come through.

01:05:35 --> 01:05:35 Yeah.

01:05:36 --> 01:05:36 Okay.

01:05:36 --> 01:05:40 But once you get out of other parts,

01:05:40 --> 01:05:41 as you get into the more,

01:05:41 --> 01:05:43 I hate to use the term progressive,

01:05:43 --> 01:05:44 but that's kind of the current term.

01:05:45 --> 01:05:45 Right.

01:05:46 --> 01:05:46 Once you get on that side,

01:05:46 --> 01:05:47 I'm not talking about,

01:05:47 --> 01:05:48 you know,

01:05:48 --> 01:05:50 way off in left field somewhere.

01:05:50 --> 01:05:51 Right.

01:05:52 --> 01:05:54 They want to emphasize the humanity of Jesus,

01:05:54 --> 01:05:55 that he's one of us,

01:05:56 --> 01:05:58 so much that they end up taking out the deity of Jesus.

01:05:58 --> 01:05:59 So either direction,

01:06:00 --> 01:06:01 and you weaken your Christology,

01:06:01 --> 01:06:03 how to hold those two in tension

01:06:04 --> 01:06:06 Maybe we should do another podcast around that, too.

01:06:06 --> 01:06:07 There's a lot to say there.

01:06:07 --> 01:06:08 Yeah, that's a whole other episode.

01:06:08 --> 01:06:12 Maybe you'll be our first guest to have a fourth time appearance.

01:06:12 --> 01:06:13 Well, I love doing these.

01:06:14 --> 01:06:16 Well, we love having you on.

01:06:28 --> 01:06:28 All right.

01:06:28 --> 01:06:30 So as we're wrapping this episode up,

01:06:30 --> 01:06:33 I've got two bonus questions for you,

01:06:33 --> 01:06:33 Gary.

01:06:33 --> 01:06:35 The first one's about the atonement.

01:06:35 --> 01:06:38 When it comes to the atonement, we have a lot of different theories.

01:06:38 --> 01:06:40 There is the moral influence theory,

01:06:40 --> 01:06:41 the ransom theory,

01:06:41 --> 01:06:42 Christus Victor,

01:06:42 --> 01:06:43 satisfaction theory,

01:06:44 --> 01:06:44 PSA,

01:06:45 --> 01:06:46 governmental theory,

01:06:46 --> 01:06:47 scapegoat theory.

01:06:47 --> 01:06:50 Gary, what is the best atonement theory?

01:06:50 --> 01:06:54 The best one is a symphonic view that weaves all of those

01:06:54 --> 01:06:55 themes together.

01:06:55 --> 01:06:55 Hmm.

01:06:56 --> 01:06:57 In a rich blend,

01:06:58 --> 01:07:01 at one point I made a decision back at the end of high school

01:07:01 --> 01:07:03 whether to go in as a

01:07:03 --> 01:07:08 violin and viola player to become a professional musician in symphony.

01:07:08 --> 01:07:09 I love symphony.

01:07:09 --> 01:07:11 But if you take a J.S.

01:07:11 --> 01:07:14 Bach or a Beethoven or somebody and the way they can weave

01:07:14 --> 01:07:14 themes together,

01:07:14 --> 01:07:17 a lot of the contemporary stuff that's behind movies,

01:07:18 --> 01:07:20 that's where classic music is today.

01:07:20 --> 01:07:23 You take somebody who can weave multiple themes together and

01:07:23 --> 01:07:25 it's just absolutely epic.

01:07:26 --> 01:07:30 And I think the best atonement theory is the symphonic one that

01:07:31 --> 01:07:31 puts together

01:07:31 --> 01:07:39 propitiation and substitution and redemption and revelation and triumph.

01:07:39 --> 01:07:41 And I could just keep going.

01:07:43 --> 01:07:47 When we did Death by Love, we put 13 different themes in there.

01:07:47 --> 01:07:48 Okay.

01:07:48 --> 01:07:51 And the idea of weaving those together and how they weave together.

01:07:52 --> 01:07:52 The new book,

01:07:53 --> 01:07:54 Mosaic of Atonement,

01:07:54 --> 01:07:57 goes through four themes and does them well.

01:07:57 --> 01:08:00 I think you need at least a dozen and you still do not

01:08:00 --> 01:08:02 adequately get the richness

01:08:02 --> 01:08:02 of what's happening.

01:08:03 --> 01:08:05 So if you say what is one theme,

01:08:05 --> 01:08:05 I'm going to say,

01:08:05 --> 01:08:06 nope,

01:08:06 --> 01:08:06 I refuse to go there.

01:08:07 --> 01:08:09 It's the symphony that's the best.

01:08:09 --> 01:08:09 Love it.

01:08:09 --> 01:08:10 Love the balance.

01:08:10 --> 01:08:11 Love the nuance.

01:08:11 --> 01:08:12 It's hard,

01:08:12 --> 01:08:12 though,

01:08:12 --> 01:08:14 because there's always the people who are like,

01:08:14 --> 01:08:15 hey,

01:08:15 --> 01:08:16 what are you doing?

01:08:16 --> 01:08:16 Pick a side.

01:08:17 --> 01:08:19 Which atonement theory is the definitive one?

01:08:19 --> 01:08:22 But yeah, I love I love what you're doing there.

01:08:23 --> 01:08:23 And I love,

01:08:24 --> 01:08:24 you know,

01:08:24 --> 01:08:27 you're drawing attention to the need for us to look at a

01:08:28 --> 01:08:29 complex event.

01:08:30 --> 01:08:32 And see it from multiple angles.

01:08:33 --> 01:08:36 And that really helps us grasp like the richness of it and the

01:08:36 --> 01:08:37 profoundness and the

01:08:38 --> 01:08:39 mind blowing this of it.

01:08:39 --> 01:08:43 Like what happened on the cross can't just be put into one box.

01:08:43 --> 01:08:43 Right.

01:08:44 --> 01:08:45 It's it's it's bigger than that.

01:08:45 --> 01:08:48 And the piece I want to do there is get the richness of

01:08:48 --> 01:08:49 biblical teaching.

01:08:49 --> 01:08:53 And so some and the thing is how you do it coherently.

01:08:53 --> 01:08:53 Right.

01:08:53 --> 01:08:54 Because you can't just say,

01:08:54 --> 01:08:55 well,

01:08:55 --> 01:08:57 I'm a Calvinist and an Arminian at the same time because there

01:08:57 --> 01:08:58 are incoherent parts

01:08:59 --> 01:08:59 between those two.

01:08:59 --> 01:09:03 How do you bring it together into a different theory instead of I'm.

01:09:03 --> 01:09:06 Well, you can come up with your own special term, right?

01:09:06 --> 01:09:06 Kalminian.

01:09:06 --> 01:09:07 Kalminian.

01:09:07 --> 01:09:08 I've done that, as you know.

01:09:09 --> 01:09:10 Well, I didn't coin the term, but.

01:09:10 --> 01:09:12 Well, I appreciate it anyway.

01:09:12 --> 01:09:13 It's good stuff.

01:09:13 --> 01:09:17 So you mentioned wanting to bring people back to the richness

01:09:17 --> 01:09:19 of biblical teaching

01:09:19 --> 01:09:19 and scripture.

01:09:19 --> 01:09:22 And so that's what my last question touches on.

01:09:23 --> 01:09:28 I have a question about how all of this informs the way that we preach.

01:09:29 --> 01:09:30 Is it okay if I bug you about that?

01:09:30 --> 01:09:32 I'm doing Jesus sermon a week from Sunday.

01:09:33 --> 01:09:34 So give me some good stuff.

01:09:34 --> 01:09:34 All right.

01:09:41 --> 01:09:47 So I think this conversation about penal substitutionary atonement,

01:09:47 --> 01:09:48 Jesus's death on the cross,

01:09:49 --> 01:09:51 Jesus taking the punishment and the penalty,

01:09:52 --> 01:09:55 I think that this raises a difficult challenge for those of us

01:09:55 --> 01:09:57 who preach the gospel,

01:09:57 --> 01:10:00 especially to young people in the age of questioning.

01:10:01 --> 01:10:01 Young people,

01:10:02 --> 01:10:02 postmoderns,

01:10:03 --> 01:10:07 especially those who wrestle with their faith and deconstruction,

01:10:07 --> 01:10:10 they're not afraid to critique Christianity or poke

01:10:10 --> 01:10:12 holes in the logic of Christianity.

01:10:13 --> 01:10:14 I see that all the time.

01:10:14 --> 01:10:16 They're very brave about how they go about doing that.

01:10:17 --> 01:10:20 And so I think that there's times when you try to explain

01:10:20 --> 01:10:21 atonement from the

01:10:21 --> 01:10:23 framing of PSA,

01:10:23 --> 01:10:25 like there was a crime done by you,

01:10:25 --> 01:10:26 you had a debt,

01:10:26 --> 01:10:27 Jesus paid that debt,

01:10:28 --> 01:10:29 you were guilty and worthy of death,

01:10:29 --> 01:10:31 but Jesus died for you and now you're free to go.

01:10:32 --> 01:10:36 in some deconstructionist circles the kind of pushback that you

01:10:36 --> 01:10:38 get from laying out

01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 the gospel that way is like oh so what it sounds like is god

01:10:42 --> 01:10:44 created a system with

01:10:44 --> 01:10:47 a bunch of rules that he knew would be easily broken god made

01:10:47 --> 01:10:48 it so that the

01:10:48 --> 01:10:51 punishment for breaking these rules would be the death penalty

01:10:51 --> 01:10:52 and then god kills

01:10:52 --> 01:10:56 his own son in order to satisfy his lust for order and rule

01:10:56 --> 01:10:59 following yeah god kind

01:10:59 --> 01:11:01 of sounds like a psychopath yeah

01:11:01 --> 01:11:05 Yeah, I wouldn't worship that God either, just to be clear.

01:11:05 --> 01:11:06 Yeah,

01:11:06 --> 01:11:09 it's a mischaracterization that people can very easily form

01:11:10 --> 01:11:11 based on the context

01:11:11 --> 01:11:12 that they have,

01:11:12 --> 01:11:13 the incomplete context that they have.

01:11:13 --> 01:11:18 So I want to run by you a shift, an adjustment.

01:11:18 --> 01:11:22 that i've been making in my preaching for this specific

01:11:22 --> 01:11:23 audience trying to be a

01:11:23 --> 01:11:26 good cultural missionary right to this specific audience and

01:11:26 --> 01:11:28 i'm totally open to

01:11:28 --> 01:11:31 any constructive critique from you on this if i'm doing it

01:11:31 --> 01:11:33 wrong like let me know

01:11:33 --> 01:11:36 what you think but here's where i'm at the way i've started to

01:11:36 --> 01:11:38 lean in my preaching

01:11:38 --> 01:11:40 for young postmodern people

01:11:41 --> 01:11:44 is in my framing of the gospel,

01:11:44 --> 01:11:48 backing up a little bit from the penal legal analogies,

01:11:48 --> 01:11:49 which I know that they're there.

01:11:49 --> 01:11:50 I know they're in scripture.

01:11:50 --> 01:11:52 I know Paul and others use them.

01:11:52 --> 01:11:55 But I've been thinking through framing the story of the gospel

01:11:55 --> 01:11:56 in terms that lean

01:11:56 --> 01:11:59 more on the ideas of disease and

01:11:59 --> 01:12:03 and cure god creates this perfect world our sin our

01:12:03 --> 01:12:05 disobedience corrupts the world

01:12:05 --> 01:12:10 poisons it it's sick it's dying we as humans are sick and dying

01:12:10 --> 01:12:11 because of our own

01:12:11 --> 01:12:14 rebellion so i still put in some personal responsibility aspects there

01:12:15 --> 01:12:16 And in this framework,

01:12:17 --> 01:12:20 it sort of focuses on the effects of sin,

01:12:20 --> 01:12:21 the wages of sin,

01:12:21 --> 01:12:24 because it's not only drawing attention for people to the

01:12:24 --> 01:12:25 reality that their own

01:12:26 --> 01:12:27 sin poisons them and now they'll die,

01:12:28 --> 01:12:31 but that the world itself is also poisoned.

01:12:31 --> 01:12:32 Turn on the news.

01:12:32 --> 01:12:33 What do you hear about?

01:12:33 --> 01:12:37 Violence, war, rape, sexism, abuse, scandal, corruption, greed.

01:12:37 --> 01:12:39 So it's drawing attention to...

01:12:39 --> 01:12:41 to these things that people can see clearly with their eyes

01:12:41 --> 01:12:42 that there is this

01:12:42 --> 01:12:44 sickness that we are dying from.

01:12:45 --> 01:12:49 And then it's letting them know that Jesus supernaturally steps into this

01:12:49 --> 01:12:51 incredible act of sacrificial love.

01:12:52 --> 01:12:54 Instead of us dying from the disease,

01:12:54 --> 01:12:58 he dies to produce a cure through his death.

01:12:58 --> 01:12:59 He dies in our place.

01:12:59 --> 01:13:03 He absorbs the evil into himself and produces a cure in himself

01:13:04 --> 01:13:05 and through himself.

01:13:05 --> 01:13:10 Even though sin and death are powerful, he is incredibly more powerful.

01:13:10 --> 01:13:14 And so allegiance to Jesus cures us of our disease and opens

01:13:15 --> 01:13:15 the door for us to

01:13:15 --> 01:13:17 experience this resurrected,

01:13:17 --> 01:13:18 cured life.

01:13:19 --> 01:13:22 And so that's a direction that I'm leaning in as I try to

01:13:22 --> 01:13:23 present the gospel to

01:13:23 --> 01:13:25 young postmodern people who are often quite,

01:13:26 --> 01:13:30 quite much more open to narrative than they are cold legal definitions.

01:13:31 --> 01:13:34 I mean, do you think taking that approach is a decent way to do it?

01:13:35 --> 01:13:37 Is there a danger in taking that kind of approach?

01:13:37 --> 01:13:40 This is something I'm wrestling through as I'm trying to

01:13:40 --> 01:13:41 develop as a preacher.

01:13:41 --> 01:13:43 So I'm fully willing to submit to any critique.

01:13:44 --> 01:13:45 I completely agree.

01:13:45 --> 01:13:46 Yeah?

01:13:46 --> 01:13:47 Completely agree.

01:13:48 --> 01:13:49 That's encouraging.

01:13:49 --> 01:13:55 Because we have to begin the good news at the point where the

01:13:55 --> 01:13:56 person is hurting.

01:13:56 --> 01:13:56 Yeah.

01:13:57 --> 01:13:57 Yeah.

01:13:57 --> 01:14:02 And keep the proverbial Gen Z does not feel like they should be

01:14:02 --> 01:14:03 punished for

01:14:03 --> 01:14:04 anything rightly or wrongly.

01:14:04 --> 01:14:06 That's where they're feeling true.

01:14:06 --> 01:14:11 But they are feeling battered and broken by the power

01:14:11 --> 01:14:12 structures of this world.

01:14:13 --> 01:14:15 And that puts you into triumph theory.

01:14:15 --> 01:14:16 Your disease thing,

01:14:16 --> 01:14:17 you know,

01:14:17 --> 01:14:20 there's something going on because violence just won't go away.

01:14:20 --> 01:14:21 Why can't we all just get along?

01:14:22 --> 01:14:23 It's still a relevant question.

01:14:23 --> 01:14:23 Right.

01:14:24 --> 01:14:28 And so you're using an analogy that's legit because disease is

01:14:28 --> 01:14:29 one of the analogies

01:14:29 --> 01:14:31 in Scripture to begin the conversation.

01:14:32 --> 01:14:37 So what I would say is I don't begin my gospel conversation

01:14:37 --> 01:14:38 with sin very often.

01:14:39 --> 01:14:42 But we'll get there eventually because people are on disease,

01:14:42 --> 01:14:45 infecting other people with their disease by intent.

01:14:45 --> 01:14:46 There is obviously sin involved.

01:14:47 --> 01:14:48 That's an analogy that young people,

01:14:48 --> 01:14:48 I think,

01:14:48 --> 01:14:51 can understand these days because of all the COVID stuff going on.

01:14:51 --> 01:14:55 You can infect somebody if you're not taking precautions like

01:14:55 --> 01:14:57 your sin has consequences.

01:14:57 --> 01:15:01 And so, yeah, I think that's absolutely.

01:15:01 --> 01:15:04 That's an interesting piece to me of the puzzle.

01:15:05 --> 01:15:07 I think that for me in my preaching,

01:15:07 --> 01:15:12 I don't want to ever lead somebody to believe that sin is not a big deal.

01:15:12 --> 01:15:16 I want them to think it's poison and that it's designed

01:15:16 --> 01:15:18 specifically to kill not

01:15:18 --> 01:15:19 just their body but their soul.

01:15:20 --> 01:15:23 But I want them to also understand the hope of Jesus and the

01:15:23 --> 01:15:24 light of Jesus and the

01:15:24 --> 01:15:29 potential of the kingdom and all of the amazing things that

01:15:29 --> 01:15:30 Jesus offers us.

01:15:30 --> 01:15:33 And also helping them understand the reality of the dark,

01:15:33 --> 01:15:36 destructive things that Jesus saves us from.

01:15:36 --> 01:15:37 Good stuff.

01:15:37 --> 01:15:37 Preach it, brother.

01:15:46 --> 01:15:46 Hey everybody,

01:15:46 --> 01:15:49 thanks for listening to another episode of the Good Lion Podcast.

01:15:49 --> 01:15:52 Man, I enjoyed that conversation so much.

01:15:52 --> 01:15:53 There was actually a little bit more,

01:15:53 --> 01:15:53 a tiny,

01:15:54 --> 01:15:54 tiny little bit,

01:15:54 --> 01:15:57 like two minutes worth at the end there,

01:15:58 --> 01:16:00 but for some reason the recording got interrupted,

01:16:00 --> 01:16:00 but...

01:16:01 --> 01:16:02 Thankfully,

01:16:02 --> 01:16:08 the large amount of this conversation was preserved and man,

01:16:08 --> 01:16:10 what a great conversation it was.

01:16:10 --> 01:16:14 Gary did such a good job dealing with all of my long-winded

01:16:14 --> 01:16:15 questions and just

01:16:16 --> 01:16:18 dropping such good insight and truth.

01:16:19 --> 01:16:22 I know for me that this conversation,

01:16:22 --> 01:16:24 starting years ago,

01:16:24 --> 01:16:27 when I heard Evan and Gary having this conversation,

01:16:28 --> 01:16:29 it impacted me so much.

01:16:29 --> 01:16:32 And it's been on my heart to share this with people for years.

01:16:33 --> 01:16:35 And so seeing this all come together,

01:16:35 --> 01:16:40 I am so stoked and blessed to be able to share this content with you.

01:16:41 --> 01:16:43 I hope it's challenged your way of thinking.

01:16:43 --> 01:16:45 I hope it's helped you in your thinking.

01:16:45 --> 01:16:49 I think that so often when it comes to theology,

01:16:50 --> 01:16:53 we can tend to have our very short,

01:16:53 --> 01:16:55 very compact answers,

01:16:55 --> 01:16:58 but theology is often very complex.

01:16:58 --> 01:16:59 And I think that

01:16:59 --> 01:17:04 We need to try harder to avoid easy answers and actually be

01:17:04 --> 01:17:06 willing to take time to

01:17:06 --> 01:17:07 wrestle through things.

01:17:07 --> 01:17:12 And so you've just witnessed me wrestling through things,

01:17:12 --> 01:17:14 my friend Evan wrestling through things,

01:17:14 --> 01:17:18 Gary helping us wrestle through things and sharing what he's

01:17:18 --> 01:17:18 wrestled through.

01:17:18 --> 01:17:22 And I think that we're the better for it.

01:17:22 --> 01:17:26 So thank you so much for listening to this show and for

01:17:26 --> 01:17:28 listening to The Good Lion Podcast.

01:17:28 --> 01:17:29 If you like our show,

01:17:29 --> 01:17:33 You can give us a review on Apple Podcasts that helps so much.

01:17:33 --> 01:17:33 And,

01:17:33 --> 01:17:33 you know,

01:17:34 --> 01:17:35 the more reviews we get,

01:17:35 --> 01:17:36 the more people will find out about our show.

01:17:37 --> 01:17:38 So if you want to help the show,

01:17:38 --> 01:17:40 please just go to Apple Podcasts and leave a quick review.

01:17:41 --> 01:17:44 And please continue to pray for Professor Gary Brashears.

01:17:45 --> 01:17:46 Pray that God would heal him.

01:17:47 --> 01:17:51 Pray for comfort and protection for his family during this hard time.

01:17:52 --> 01:17:56 And just pray that God would continue to give Gary direction

01:17:56 --> 01:17:58 and wisdom and hope

01:17:58 --> 01:17:58 during this time.

01:17:58 --> 01:18:02 I was reading his blog and Gary was just talking about how the

01:18:02 --> 01:18:02 word that he

01:18:02 --> 01:18:06 received from the Lord for this season was,

01:18:06 --> 01:18:07 this is not the end.

01:18:07 --> 01:18:08 Keep on with what you're doing.

01:18:08 --> 01:18:10 And man, what a...

01:18:10 --> 01:18:14 What an encouragement to see somebody facing cancer and yet

01:18:14 --> 01:18:16 continuing to serve the

01:18:16 --> 01:18:19 Lord and to serve others and to serve their family in such an

01:18:19 --> 01:18:20 inspiring way.

01:18:20 --> 01:18:24 We're so thankful for Gary and we just continue to pray for him

01:18:24 --> 01:18:25 and we just ask

01:18:25 --> 01:18:26 that you would pray for him too.

01:18:26 --> 01:18:28 So from me and Brian,

01:18:28 --> 01:18:29 from our hearts,

01:18:30 --> 01:18:33 thank you for listening to our show and we'll see you on the next one.