Josh Blount on Penal Substitutionary Atonement
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director, and on this episode, with a special guest. We have a guest joining us, Mark, Josh Blount—a friend. If you don't know who Josh is, he has been a pastor for many years at Living Faith Church in Franklin, West Virginia. Furthermore, Josh is a real gift to our family of churches. He serves on our theology committee. He's one of my favorite teachers in Sovereign Grace. I've gotten to sit under his teaching a couple of times. He teaches at our Pastor's College, did a wonderful breakout at the Pastor's Conference, I believe last year, on the therapeutic movement. And furthermore, at Worship God, he became the first pastor I've ever heard to inform the audience that he was wearing his good preaching boots. Welcome, Josh.
Josh Blount:
I'm wearing 'em right now.
Benjamin Kreps:
He's wearing them right now.
Mark Prater:
They should be good.
Benjamin Kreps:
He is from West Virginia after all. So Mark, as you know, we highlighted a sad dynamic with some current authors and teachers, where something that's not new, sadly, is this move away from penal substitutionary atonement, a move away from an orthodox biblical understanding of the cross and what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And so we thought it would be perfect to have Josh on to help us think through this as pastors and church members for everybody who's checking out the podcast. So, Josh, what is penal substitutionary atonement, and why is it important?
Josh Blount:
I'm glad you guys asked me on and talked about the topic, and it is so central. We were saying before the podcast, it does seem to get regularly dismissed or challenged. So that phrase, "penal substitutionary atonement," is our attempt to capture a doctrinal formulation—a key aspect of the work of Christ, that his death on the cross is in our place (substitutionary). And it's not merely substitutionary in a vague sense, but it's a penal substitution—he is bearing the wrath of God for us. And in framing it, even in saying it that way, you see how it impinges upon other doctrines, specifically the nature of God and his wrath toward sin. When we begin to tamper with that, most of the kinds of things that get objected against penal substitution carry with them implications about how God relates to the world, to sin, about the very nature of God itself. It begins to unravel things that are at the core of who God is and, therefore, who the gospel is. So, even though the phrase is somewhat clunky, it precisely captures what we're defending in our understanding of the work of Christ: he bears our wrath in our place on the cross. The hymn put it: "In my place, condemned he stood." That captures what we're after.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, really, really well said. I think in my lifetime, about every five to ten years, it seems like penal substitutionary atonement is being attacked, and we have to guard churches from it. But it's been throughout church history. It became really clear, I think, at the Reformation, where they defended it there, but even in some of the early church fathers, you see them speaking about and defending penal substitutionary atonement. So, I think this will happen again; it's sort of the reason we wanted to dedicate an episode to this. And, you know, based on that, present pastors and future pastors in Sovereign Grace, why is it important for pastors to guard their churches from any drift away from penal substitutionary atonement?
Josh Blount:
Yeah, I think the short answer is because as soon as you drift here, other doctrines are pulled along with it and our very understanding of the nature of the gospel and the God who is there. It's not as though God changes because we fail to understand him—he is who he is, has revealed himself, and has wrath towards sin. But as soon as we begin to mess with this doctrine, we lose our bearings to the way the world really works. God is wrathful against human sin. God is—the broken covenant calls forth the curses of the covenant. I'm using that language as part of it because we just finished preaching through Leviticus. And you can't help but see that coming to expression at the conclusion of Leviticus—the blessings and the curses that are repeated in Deuteronomy. This is the way God treats those who rebel against him, and sin has placed us all in Adam's helpless race, and if God does not pour out his curse on someone, then we bear it.
When we begin to tamper with that, what we think about the proclamation of the gospel, how we worship God, the nature of God—all those things get distorted. I think we even lose the ability—this is one of my personal reasons why I plant the flag here—I think we lose the ability to speak to the problem of evil and how God relates to the injustice of the world. Someone asked me—it's been some years back, and I don't know what I said in the moment, and the answer has grown in my mind the longer I've thought on it. This person asked me, "The older you get, do you find it harder to believe in the wrath of God?" And I think I gave them the same answer in principle I'd give now, but it's expanded every time.
I think now, actually, the older I get, the easier it is, and the more precious the wrath of God becomes as the only thing that can balance the scales of human sin—in the abstract and in the concrete. Like, if you lose this sense that there is a God who is implacably opposed, with all of his unchanging righteous character, to every manifestation of human sin, then what do you say to the person who's been abused and the abuser got away? What do you say to people who live through wars and atrocities in our global family of churches? I think about the kind of things that our brothers in Ukraine experience. What do you say when you confront that kind of depth of human evil, if not, "God is righteously opposed to all evil and will one day punish it"? You lose that.
Now, an honest reckoning with our hearts, as soon as you say that, you realize that vast gulf between God and sinful human beings. I’m on the wrong side of the gulf. And so the problem of evil pushes me back to someone needs to die for my sins and bearing the wrath of God. It's like you come full circle, and the glories of the gospel and the nature of God and how he relates to his world—as soon as penal substitution gets tampered with, those edges begin to fray or those doctrines begin to come unraveled. And we can't have that. We lose so much when we lose that.
Mark Prater:
Well said.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yes, that is well said. Josh, it's common to hear in this kind of discussion people talking about theories—atonement theories—of which penal substitutionary atonement may be presented as one theory, and then maybe Christus Victor another, which we love and hold to—the victory of Jesus in his death and resurrection and so forth. And so penal substitutionary atonement doesn't say everything there is to say about what Jesus was doing on the cross. But it is central. Help us understand why it needs to be central.
Josh Blount:
Yeah, that's a great question, and that often does come up. And also, along with that, either that there are various theories of the atonement, and often linked with that accusation is: this is a relatively recent development. Anselm is usually blamed as an outdated medieval notion that hasn't been in the entire history of the church, exactly, and now it's in a modern Western context with notions of guilt—we bring those sorts of things. So, this kind of objection, you just need to be prepared for those. That's one of the things people raise.
I think the way I learned to think about it, with all the men who have influenced me theologically and in preaching through different sections of Scripture, is penal substitution is either—you can use either kind of metaphor—it's either the foundation all the other theories stand upon, or it's the mechanism by which all the other theories actually are good news.
In other words, what I mean by that: if the Cross is merely there is a victory over evil forces and I'm on the wrong side of the battle line, how may I be made right with the God who is implacably opposed to evil and defeats all his enemies? How do I become someone who is not an enemy of God but a friend of God? Penal substitution is the only adequate answer that deals with all that the Bible says about the nature of sinfulness, human beings, and our relationship to God. So with that as the foundation, then the victory of Christ over all forces of evil is astoundingly good news.
And it's another of those—I like to think of them as facets rather than theories, because it's not as though we're concocting theories to explain a phenomenon we're observing in the natural world. It's the way in which God's revelation has many facets and weaves together so many themes that aren't human extrapolations—they're there in the text. The victory theme is a significant theme, but it has to be woven with the others, and that's why either the language of a foundation or the mechanism—like how is it that all these other things are operationalize? When Christ actually accomplishes something, how does that become good news? Victory, his example—there are many texts that call us to follow the example of Christ, but that's powerless unless the curse of the broken covenant that would have been upon my head is cleared by the action of Christ in my place, so that now I can follow in his footsteps. Penal substitution is underneath all those things. It gives them the place where those doctrines find their right expression, those themes that emerge in Scripture. But you pull out penal substitution, and none of those are adequate to bear the weight of the scriptural revelation—they just begin to collapse on themselves.
Mark Prater:
Yeah. It seems like that's just a human tendency—we tend to want to drift away from believing in the wrath of God. We want to see God as a loving God. And I think when you lose penal substitutionary atonement, one sort of theological truth that you lose is a right definition of the love of God, actually. Because if penal substitutionary atonement does satisfy the wrath of God that I deserve, what's motivated that? I believe that what Scripture reveals is—the love of God. If you remove the wrath of God from that, I think you don't have a right understanding of the love of God. Would you say anything more about that?
Josh Blount:
Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's because of God is in all his fullness, then you begin to take one part out and you distort and diminish your understanding of some other aspect of the full character of God. And yes, without seeing what the love of God cost in the Son of God bearing the wrath of God, then I don't have the full depths of understanding of what the love of God entailed. I think I've used this quote in so many contexts, I try to weave it in anywhere. One of my favorite Derek Kidner lines from his commentary on Genesis in reflecting on that, the aftermath of the fall in Genesis three, as he looked back on it, they took an eat. He says, so simple, the act so hard, the undoing God himself will taste death before, take an eat, become verbs of salvation.
Profound sentences. But understanding that idea that the love of God is so expressed in that moment that he himself will take on human nature to die in our place so that he can say, now take and eat and be welcomed into the fellowship of the table, fellowship of God. You lose that if you lose the understanding of what God was willing to bear to bear the wrath of God in our place.
Mark Prater:
Amen. Yeah, well said.
Benjamin Kreps:
It is well said. And Josh, as you are aware, there is this growing, encouraging phenomenon in our culture where more and more people are saying "Christ is King," and you see "Christ is King" shirts and people jumping on YouTube videos, declaring "Christ is King," which we happily declare as well with them. But if, essentially, what you're saying—if Christ is only King, then that is not a reason for celebration, that is a reason for despair, for we have offended this King. But if this King willingly reconciles us to God through His own death, then we have a Savior King whom we can love and follow without fear.
Josh Blount:
Yeah, so well said. I think of the image from the Psalms—the city that's besieged and the glorious King is on their side, Psalm 2, Psalm 48 language. We instinctively think, "I'm on the right side, and the King is for me." The overwhelming message of Scripture from Genesis 3 onward is, no, you're on the wrong side. You have rebelled against the Holy One, and that means his implacable opposition to sin is directed against us, unless God changes.
Makes me think of one of the short summaries that I learned from Herman Bavinck that helps us think about all these sorts of pushes against penal substitution. Bavinck, in his Reformed Dogmatics, just makes the observation that all alternative theories to the atonement in the end amount to a subjective change in us rather than an objective change in God—something that, in the character of God, requires redemption. By that, what he means is, it's God's unchanging opposition to sin—that is, the wrath of God—that has to be propitiated (to bring in that doctrine, that phrase). And every other thing—historical theology, German enlightenment—in the end, they boil down to the atonement is about changing something in us, rather than the wrath of God being atoned and propitiation being made to divert the wrath of God from us.
And that simple insight—it's like the proverbial bottom button when you're buttoning up a shirt; you know, if you get the bottom button off, you get everything wrong from that point onwards. The good news of the gospel starts with God, with reference to his character and his righteous requirements that he cannot and will not change. And therefore, downstream from that, there are many subjective benefits that flow to us. Bavinck and all those who say, yes, there's something captured there, but unless you start with the change that God himself has initiated so that his righteous requirements may be fulfilled—back to your image—we have a King who is implacably opposed to us, and that's not good news.
Mark Prater:
Yeah. So well said, Josh. These are just a few reasons why pastors are called to guard their churches from a drift away from penal substitutionary atonement. But one of the things we wanted to ask you is, how does a pastor do that? How does a pastor guard his church from any drift away from penal substitutionary atonement?
Josh Blount:
Yeah, excellent question. I think it has to begin with our own pursuit of being God-centered in our understanding of our status before God—our task as ministers, the aids. Here we are on a podcast talking about it, and it always presents the challenge. We have to go live that. Live as though God is really the center of the universe and his character and his requirements. The more we begin with that, and I think when you find someone who is dazzled by the radiance of God and God-centered, that person is just intrinsically protected, even if they can't articulate—I'm thinking of a church member—even if you can't articulate why, it's the doctrine of penal substitution that sounds off. You just know that feels like it's getting the universe out of balance.
So, to guard our church, it has to begin with, "I'm God-centered and I'm crying out that God would help me to be a God-centered follower of Christ and pastor who sees Him at the center and is willing to orient my life around God rather than orienting God around my life." I think when we begin there, we're protected. And that will season its way through all our preaching, all our counseling, all our speaking—just a sense of the majesty of God that protects us from some of the cultural voices, perhaps, who want to accommodate God to our current cultural understanding. If a pastor is protected from that by a sense of the weight and majesty of God, we're guarded at the very outset.
Beyond that, if you're saying, "I want to be that—God help me—as best as I can, I'm trying to live that way," otherwise, still think about this: I think I would say, make it a matter of personal study if you're not convinced. The collection of essays "In My Place Condemned He Stood" has Packer's classic introduction—that's so good. The "Pierced for Our Transgressions" book—which, full disclosure, is still on my shelf, and I've never read it in its entirety. That was when I got a PC. But from all I hear in the recommendations and the places I've dipped in, it's outstanding. Reading good, older systematic theology—a reference to Bavinck, I love Bavinck—"The Work of Christ." That is an outstanding book. Donald Macleod has a book called "Christ Crucified," a book on the work of Christ that I found really helpful. I think those kinds of areas of personal study, where you just spend time reflecting on this as pastors, that helps protect us, because then we see the value of the doctrine, we understand some of its implications with other doctrines.
And then I'd say, in our own experience—just here at LFC—the more you preach through wide different kinds of Scripture, the more you just begin to see it emerging everywhere. Our series through Leviticus was a delight. We all—it was a summer series in Leviticus. Stephen and I, as we were preaching through, approached it with a little bit of fear and trepidation, like, "Oh boy, here we go." And the church consistently said—and one man said, "This is now my favorite book of the Bible," because you can't preach through it without seeing the holiness of God, the tremendous privilege, and the terrifying realities of having a holy God dwelling in the midst of the camp. You know, a 75 by 150-foot tent—the Righteous One is now in the middle of Israel. What is that going to require? And seeing that just reinforces so many of those things. So, don't be afraid to preach into Leviticus. It's a great joy to do this.
We're now in Hebrews, which we intentionally did --- Leviticus to Hebrews. We kind of felt like we preached half of Hebrews just as preaching Leviticus because we can't preach week by week through it without reference. But preach the breadth of Scripture and see the God-centeredness of it, and the way in which, as the varying threads—to use that metaphor for the threads—about the nature of God, the nature of the gospel, what redemption entails, how they come from so many different sections of Scripture. I think it drives those convictions home much deeper than it would be if we only thought this was based on a few verses in the New Testament. It's the entire pattern of God's revelation, defended in every specific instance—even the semantic range of pronouns, that was one of the battles for a while, and the pronouns in the New Testament: in our place versus on behalf of us. But it's not just limited to a few key verses and a few semantic discussions. It's the entire warp and woof of God's revelation that requires the character of God be satisfied by someone who appears on the stage of history and says, "Behold, here I am to do your will, O God." That picture woven from so many parts of Scripture—that helps us defend penal substitution.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, well said.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's excellent. And what a privilege it is for pastors to be able to help the people we serve to see just that. John Stott – “The Cross of Christ” at the beginning, at the outset, says the nature of atonement throughout the whole of Scripture is substitutionary. And what a joy it is for us to be able to not only be personally affected but also serve our folks by helping them see that as well.
You know, I was reminded of a story from very early on in ministry. I was interacting with a young woman who was attending a so-called Christian university not far from us, who was struggling with believing that God really loved her. As I interacted with her, I asked her what her view of the cross was, because I think, clearly, the Scriptures themselves tell us it is where God's love is on the fullest display for us—at the cross. And she informed me that at the university she attended, they had told her that this was a sort of relic of, you know, sort of benighted, regressive Christianity—this idea of penal substitutionary atonement—and that Jesus died as an example of pacifism, essentially. And my heart broke for that young woman, and it certainly helped inform me in a trajectory of my ministry. This is not something just for theological eggheads and academics to sit around debating. This has everything to do with how we even think about God and how he thinks about us.
Josh Blount:
So well said.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah, so true. So we are grateful that you are helping us to think more clearly about how to protect our churches and, furthermore, how to better preach the fullness of the whole counsel of God and the glories of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice in our place.
So thank you, Josh, for joining us and for your thoughts—very helpful.
Josh Blount:
You're welcome.
Benjamin Kreps:
Thank you. Thank you all for checking out the podcast and we'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.