Thread by @JamesBejon

A LONG THREAD: Reader beware!

John 18–21 and Penal Substitutionary #Atonement (2nd Ed.)

As an uncommon #PassionWeek unfolds, I thought some (perhaps) uncommon thoughts about atonement in John’s Gospel might be of help.

Over recent years, the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement (hereafter ‘PSA’) has attracted a significant number of criticisms.

One of the more novel among them concerns the issue of PSA’s provenance.

‘The Gospels’, one writer claims, ‘don’t address the subject of the cross in the way Christians wish they had’.

They are ‘not particularly concerned with the question of how Jesus’ death enables sinners to be forgiven’ (which, of course, is what PSA purport to explain);

their primary concern is to set forth the fact of Jesus’ enthronement as the climax of Israel’s history.

In the thread below, I’ll argue otherwise.

The *premise* of the criticism outlined above is quite correct.

The Gospels don’t address the subject of the cross in the way we might have liked/expected.

Or, to put the point more positively, the Gospels do things in their own way.

(Their theology is conveyed more by means of actions and images rather than explicit doctrinal statements.)

But to say the Gospels are unconcerned with the question of how Jesus’ death enables sinners to be forgiven is quite incorrect,

as I’ll seek to show, with John 18–21 as my case study.

John portrays Jesus’ sacrifice, I argue, not merely as the climax of Israel’s history, but as substitutionary, penal, and propitiatory.

--- 1.1 SUBSTITUTION ---

As we pick up the story in John 18, the stage is set.

Jesus has recently been anointed in anticipation of his burial, and the Pharisees are now ready to make their final move (12.9–10).

Jesus’ death therefore looms large on the horizon.

But, for John, Jesus’ is no normal death.

It is a death Jesus chooses to die, and one he dies on behalf of others.

Consider, by way of illustration, the events of 18.1–9.

Jesus is well aware of Judas’ plan to betray him.

Yet, after supper, Jesus nevertheless chooses to descend into the darkness of the Kidron valley—a place where he can easily be captured, unprotected by the presence of ‘the crowds’.

Not long afterwards, Judas and his soldiers arrive.

Judas’s soldiers do not appear to recognise Jesus.

Jesus could easily, therefore, choose to conceal his identity and slip away into the night.

But, instead, he approaches the (armed) soldiers, discloses his identity to them, and allows his disciples to escape unharmed.

‘I am he!’, Jesus declares.

‘If it is me you seek, then let these other men go!’—a request to which the soldiers consent. (Jesus’ disciples would otherwise have been arrested along with him.)

John has not recorded these events merely for the sake of historical completeness; John wants us to view/interpret Jesus’ death in light of them.

Jesus voluntarily puts himself in harm’s way in the Kidron valley, as he will also do at Calvary.

No-one will ‘take’ Jesus’ life from him; he will lay it down ‘of his own accord’ (ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ: 10.18).

At the same time, Jesus surrenders himself for the sake of others, viz. ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ (‘on behalf of his friends’).

Jesus is led away captive so others might go free, ultimately to be slain so others might live (3.16).

Of course, that Jesus dies in order to preserve the lives of twelve then-unknown Israelites may seem a trivial picture of an event as epic as the crucifixion.

But, as @PLeithart has pointed out, Jesus’ disciples are not random bystanders;

they are men whom Jesus has chosen as pillars of his earthly kingdom, and whom Jesus has specifically promised to keep and protect (cf. 18.9 w. 6.39).

If Jesus’ disciples are slain, Jesus’ kingdom cannot succeed.

It will prove to have been founded on the word of a man who is unable to keep his promises (and, worse still, unable to accomplish his Father’s will).

--- 1.2 THE SCOPE OF SUBSTITUTION ---

But John doesn’t portray Jesus’ sacrifice as a sacrifice for Jesus’ disciples alone.

In 18.13, where he reintroduces Caiaphas into the story, John reminds us of an important piece of information, viz.,

‘Caiaphas was the one who had said,…One man should die for the people (ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ)!’

John’s remark isn’t (only) for the benefit of his less attentive readers; John wants us to teach us about the scope of Jesus’ death.

Caiaphas’s statement can be understood in at least two ways.

First, it can be taken at face value.

Caiaphas wants to dispose of Jesus in order to spare his people, Israel.

Earlier in John’s gospel, the authorities identify Jesus as a man with the potential to stir up Israel against the Romans (with disastrous results: 11.48–52),

in response to which Caiaphas declares, ‘Better, then, to let one man die on behalf of (ὑπὲρ) the people!’, and the plot to dispose of Jesus is hence born (11.53).

Here in John 18, that plot comes to fruition.

Rather than allow Jesus’ ministry to continue (at the risk of Israel’s place in the empire), the chief priests hand Jesus over to the Romans.

Per Caiaphas’s statement, then, Jesus will be slain, and will thereby spare not just his disciples, but the entire nation/state of Israel from destruction (albeit only temporarily).

Caiaphas’s statement also hints at a deeper reality.

True, Jesus will ‘die for his people’ insofar as his death will preserve Israel’s place within the Roman empire.

But Jesus’ death will also meet a deeper need.

Israel’s ultimate problem is not her vassalage to Rome; it is her enslavement to sin (8.34), which Jesus has come to abolish.

Just as Moses came to free the Israelites (from Pharaoh) and let them live as they should, i.e., as YHWH’s firstborn son (Exod. 4.22–23), so Jesus has come to free his people from the bondage of sin and let *them* live as they should, i.e., as ‘sons of God’ (cp. 8.45–35).

To do so, however, will require Jesus to serve as Israel’s Passover lamb (per 1.29), which, of course, is a substitutionary role.

For John, then, Jesus dies on behalf of—and as a substitute for—all Israel.

Of course, Jesus’ death is not limited to Israel, as we’ll soon see.

But, for the moment, let us move on to consider the legal aspect of Jesus’ death.

--- 2.1 THE ROLE OF THE LAW ---

If Caiaphas’s statement in ch. 18 concerns the substitutionary aspect of Jesus’ death, then the chief priests’ statement (in ch. 19) concerns its legal aspect, i.e., the relationship between Jesus’ death and the law.

‘We have a law’, the chief priests say (Caiaphas presumably included), ‘and, because of that law (κατὰ τὸν νόμον), Jesus ought to die!’.

As before, the chief priests’ statement can be understood in at least two ways.

First, it can be taken at face value.

The Jews do indeed have a law: they have a body of rules, developed by the accumulation of tradition and handed down to them by their ‘fathers’.

Jesus, however, shows little regard for the Jews’ law/tradition.

He performs many of his miracles on the Sabbath (when he could just as easily have waited until Sunday).

And, on one occasion, he restores a blind man’s sight by means of a ‘paste’ he makes,

which many authorities would have viewed Jesus’ actions as ‘work’.

Given the Jews’ (oral) law, then, Jesus must die.

He is a law-breaker, and must be punished as such.

Remarkably, therefore, Jesus will die a death reserved for the law’s transgressors and associated with the law’s curse (Deut. 21.23),

yet Jesus himself will be innocent—a notion which we will expand on later. (Nothing in the passion narratives is insignificant.)

But the Jews’ statement is also true in a deeper sense, which is predicated on a different sense of the word ‘law’.

Given the stipulations of Mosaic law, if Jesus is to redeem his people, he must die.

God has clearly said, ‘I will not acquit the guilty’ (Exod. 23). If, therefore, Jesus’ people are to be acquitted—i.e., released from the law’s demands—, a penalty must be paid.

As such, Jesus’ death takes place κατὰ τὸν νόμον = ‘in accord with the law’ and its (just) demand.

--- 2.2 PENAL SUBSTITUTION ---

We hence come the issue of guilt and penalty.

Suppose our discussion to date has been correct; that is to say, suppose John portrays Jesus’ death as substitutionary and penal.

The question remains, How is Jesus’ death anything more than a travesty of justice?

In what sense does Jesus die a death which is deserved by others?

The answer requires us to consider two important aspects of John’s passion.

The first is the nature of the chief priests’ charge against Jesus.

When Pilate asks the chief priests why they want Jesus hung, they do not cite their own laws or traditions.

They instead try to give Pilate an answer which, as a Roman polytheist, he will understand and sympathise with: ‘because Jesus has made himself out to be the Son of God’ (19.5)!

Should the priests’ accusations be upheld? μὴ γένοιτο!

It is not Jesus who has acquired ideas above his station; it is the chief priests.

They are mere men, yet they have exalted their traditions above the law of God—‘hired hands’, yet they have (unlawfully) assumed the role of Israel’s Shepherd (cp. 10.10–13 w. Psa. 23).

For John, then, Jesus’ death is a penalty which Jesus’ accusers deserve to pay.

Jesus’ death can also, however, be seen as a penalty which Pilate deserves to pay.

Consider, by way of demonstration, the tenets of the Mosaic law (Exod. 23):

These tenets do not concern ceremonial matters; they are foundational principles of justice, applicable to all societies.

And Pilate contravenes them at every point.

He sides with the multitude, condemns an innocent man, acquits a known criminal, and thereby endorses a false charge motivated by malice rather than truth. (Indeed, Pilate scoffs at the idea of truth. ‘What is truth?’, he asks.)

As such, Jesus’ death can be seen as a penalty which deserves to be paid not only by the chief priests, but by Pilate too,

since when charges are falsely brought against a man in Mosaic law, those very charges must be paid by the man’s accuser(s) (Deut. 19.18–19).

As a man who has (unjustly) sentenced Jesus to death, Pilate himself is worthy of death.

The next aspect of John’s narrative we need to consider involves the notion of federal headship.

Caiaphas and Pilate are not isolated figures on the stage of world history; they represent whole people-groups.

Caiaphas is the appointed representative of the Jewish people, while Pilate is a local horn/representative of the current worldpower, viz., Daniel’s apocalyptic beast/kingdom (cp. Dan. 7).

The guilt incurred by Caiaphas and Pilate is not, therefore, incurred by them alone.

Just as the Jews who reject Jesus in Matt. 23 incur the guilt of their fathers (viz. the bloodguilt associated with the death of Abel through to Zechariah: cp. Matt. 23.34–39), so Israel and the nations incur the guilt of Caiaphas and Pilate, in whom they are represented.

Consequently, Jesus’ trial is not merely a precursor to the crucifixion.

It is an event of epic significance and proportions in and of itself—a microcosm of the way in which every man and woman must take their stand either for or against God and his Messiah,

as is reflected in the chief priests’ statement.

‘If you choose to release Jesus’, they tell Pilate, ‘you are no friend of Caesar’ (19.12).

Pilate is hence faced with a binary decision—to function as a friend of Caesar (and by that token an enemy of God: cp. Jas. 4) or a friend of Jesus (and by that token someone for whom Jesus has died: cf. 15.13)—,

which is the same decision every man must make.

Jesus’ trial also provides us with an exquisite picture of how Jesus is treated/viewed by God.

In our text, two parties appear before Pilate: the chief priests and Jesus.

The chief priests’ behaviour is suspicious (as Pilate soon recognises: cp. 18.30–33),

and Jesus is clearly innocent of their accusations. (Indeed, Pilate declares him as such on three separate occasions.)

And yet, remarkably, Jesus is saddled with the penalty which *should* have been borne by the chief priests—‘reckoned along with the transgressors’ (Isa. 53.12).

Pilate thus treats an innocent man as if he is guilty and allows a guilty party to go free,

which provides us with an exquisite picture of a deeper theological truth, namely,

‘(God) made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf’ (2 Cor. 5.21).

Consequently, what Pilate enacts in ‘earthly terms’ in John’s passion is simultaneously enacted in ‘heavenly terms’ (cp. 3.12),

not on the stone pavement before Pilate’s judgment seat, but on the sapphire pavement before God’s heavenly throne.

And why? So we who are unrighteous might become ‘the righteousness of God’.

--- 2.3 AUTHORITY ---

More, however, needs to be said about the role of federal headship in John’s passion, since Caiaphas and Pilate are not the only federal heads in view.

In between Caiaphas and Pilate stands a more important federal head—Jesus—, a man with a different kind of kingdom to Caiaphas’s and Pilate’s (18.36) but a king nonetheless,

and one whom Caiaphas and Pilate have (rightly) hailed as ‘King of the Jews’.

Of course, Caiaphas and Pilate’s actions are intended to mock Jesus’ kingship rather than acknowledge it.

Yet John records their actions because he wants us to perceive their deeper significance (cp. Dan. 7.13–14).

What happens to Jesus in ch. 19 is not ultimately a rejection of Jesus’ authority, but a demonstration of it,

since what is done to Jesus is precisely what the prophets say must be done to him.

As Paul says,

For John, then, Jesus’ death is an act of enthronement.

And that fact becomes even more significant when we consider what Pilate decides to inscribe above Jesus’ head.

Pilate acknowledges Jesus’ status as king in three distinct languages—Jewish Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.

Why does John record such an apparently irrelevant detail? Why is it important for us to know?

My suggestion is follows:

because Jesus now has authority not only over the geographical territories of Israel and the nations (hence his assigned title ‘King of the Jews’, inscribed in Greek, i.e., the language of the nations),

but over the law (hence it is also inscribed in Jewish Aramaic and Latin).

By means of his death, Jesus will be able either to retain or to forgive men’s sins (20.22–23),

whether committed under the Mosaic law (Jewish Aramaic) or common law (cp. the Latin).

--- 3.1 ATONEMENT ---

We thus come to the subject of atonement.

As we’ve seen, Jesus’ death is voluntary, penal, and substitutionary.

But in what sense is it an act of atonement? How is it reparatory/restorative?

Given our considerations to date, we can already provide a *generic* answer to these questions.

Since Jesus’ death is penal and substitutionary—i.e., since Jesus’ death is ‘for’ (ὑπὲρ) others—, it must clearly be reparatory in some way. (Otherwise, in what sense would it be ‘for’ someone else? And in what sense would it ‘pay’ their penalty?)

But John also portrays Jesus’ death as reparatory in more specific ways.

For a start, John’s narrative includes a number of allusions to the cultic system.

Why? Because John wants us to interpret Jesus’ death as a Levitical sacrifice,

i.e., a sacrifice which repairs man’s relationship with God.

Consider, for instance, the events listed below:

In symbolical terms, then, the text of chs. 18–21 does not merely describe a journey into Jerusalem’s courtyard; it describes a journey to the very heart of Jerusalem’s sacrificial system.

In a sense, Peter has brought a sacrifice to the Tabernacle, just not in the normal way.

Equally significant are the resonances between John’s passion and Lev. 14’s purification ritual.

In Lev. 14, the man-to-be-purified is brought to the priest, examined, and led outside the camp, where a sacrifice is offered to the LORD, all of which is echoed in John’s passion.

More remarkable, however, are the parallels between the components of Lev. 14’s ritual and the particularities of John’s crucifixion scene.

The ritual described in Lev. 14 involves seven components:

cedarwood,

scarlet yarn,

hyssop (dipped in blood),

a pair of live birds (one of which is to be killed and the other ‘released’),

a source of running water (lit., מַיִם חַיִּים = ‘water of life’),

and a clay vessel.

Curiously, each of these components has a counterpart in John’s crucifixion scene.

We have a wooden cross (apparently made from cedarwood),

a purple robe,

a sponge drenched in wine (passed to Jesus by means of a hyssop branch),

and two potential victims,

one of whom will be killed (Jesus) and the other released (Barabbas).

Meanwhile, the vessel and source of water find their counterpart in Jesus’ own body (a ‘vessel of clay’),

from which water flows forth in anticipation of the ‘water of life’ soon to be poured out on the post-resurrection world (in the form of the Holy Spirit).

These parallels are not coincidental.

For John, Jesus’ death enacts a reparatory sacrifice—an act which will cleanse and purify a sin-stained and impure world.

John also brings out the reparatory nature of Jesus’ death in a further way (which we have just hinted at),

namely in his description of the post-resurrection world.

As @PLeithart has pointed out, John’s Gospel cannot legitimately end with Jesus’ death since sacrifices do not end with the death of the animal.

Rather, sacrifices are ‘offered up’ to God on an altar.

Their smoke ascends into the heavenly realms (where it arouses God’s pleasure) as a symbol of the worshipper’s acceptance in God’s presence and, if relevant, restoration to fellowship (Heb. 6.19–20).

And precisely the same logic connects the text of ch. 19 to that of chs. 20–21.

In the (Sabbatical) silence between chs. 19 and 20, Jesus ascends into the heavenly realms where he presents his people (blameless) before the throne of God (cp. Heb. 9–10) and hence restores them to fellowship both with him and with their heavenly Father.

The disciples’ restoration is then reflected in all sorts of discontinuities between the events of chs. 19 and 20.

Consider, by way of illustration, the state of play at the conclusion of ch. 19.

The disciples’ world lies in ruins.

They have abandoned the one they love and failed their leader, and there remains little for them to do but go their separate ways and return to their previous lives.

Had that state of affairs marked the conclusion of John’s gospel, it would not have been a Gospel at all, but a tragedy.

Scripture’s final comment on the disciples’ lives would have a description of their faithlessness, shame, and estrangement,

while its final verdict on Jesus’ life would have been ‘guilty’.

Yet, in the silence between chs. 19 and 20, heaven has its say.

God does not approve of Pilate’s verdict. He overturns it in the most dramatic way possible—by means of the resurrection.

And, with the resurrection, everything changes.

On the 1st day of the subsequent week, Jesus reappears to Mary and reconnects/reunites her with the disciples.

Soon afterwards, the disciples—whom Jesus refers to as ‘his brothers’—reassemble.

Later that night, Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room, as undeterred by a locked door as he was by a sealed tomb.

His initial words to them (‘Peace to you!’) are no mere formality, but words of restoration. (They also happen to be words which Jesus repeats three times in response to—and in restoration of—Peter’s threefold denial of him.)

And, finally, the disciples are encouraged to ‘break their fast’ (ἀριστήσατε!).

With ch. 18’s charcoal fire happily reinvented, they eat and drink in the presence of their risen Saviour.

As such, Jesus’ death and resurrection make full reparation for the disciples’ sins.

Their fellowship with their Saviour is restored, their sorrow turned to ‘gladness’ (20.20), and their faithlessness replaced by ‘belief’ (20.8, 27–29).

The same reparation/reversal is reflected in John’s allusions to the OT.

With the trials of Psa. 22 behind him, Jesus moves on to the Psalm’s triumphant finale.

‘I will declare your name to my brethren’, the Psalmist declares, ‘in the midst of the assembly’, just as Jesus does in chs. 20–21 (cp. Heb. 2).

He appears ‘in the midst’ of his re-assembled disciples,

refers to them as ‘his brethren’,

and later (per the words of Psa. 22.26) invites them to ‘eat and be satisfied’.

Meanwhile, the dark, accursed, and wineless world of Isa. 24 begins to sink beneath a flood of judgment as the world of Isa. 25 rises up in its place—a world where ‘death has been swallowed up’ in resurrection,

where ‘shame has been taken away’ by forgiveness,

where ‘tears’ are no longer the order of the day (‘Why do you
weep?’),

and where Israel’s cry of ‘Behold, this is our God!’ finds an echo in Thomas’s remarkable confession, ‘My Lord and my God!’.

For John, then, Jesus’ sacrifice is reparatory and restoration.

It has overcome the power of the law and ispo facto the sting of death.

--- 3.2 WRATH ---

We thus come to our final issue, viz., the issue of divine wrath.

What role does divine wrath have to play in John’s passion?

Does Jesus’ sacrifice simply enable sins to be forgiven in some mysterious and unspecific way? Or is its efficacy grounded in the satisfaction of divine wrath?

In light of our considerations so far, the answer is clearly the latter.

Chs. 18–19’s events are explicitly framed against the dark backdrop of the Passover—the night when YHWH unleashed his wrath against Egypt and only those houses where a lamb had been slain were ‘passed over’—,

and Jesus is introduced to us precisely as ‘God’s lamb’ (1.29, 36).

For John, then, the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice, like that of the Passover lamb, is to avert God’s wrath. (John’s portrayal of Jesus as a Levitical sacrifice is supportive of the same conclusion, since the aversion of wrath is integral to the notion of atonement.)

All well and good, one might say.

But does the ‘aversion’ of divine wrath necessarily entail its ‘satisfaction’? I believe so.

Three points in particular can be noted by way of demonstration.

First, the events of the Passover involve more than just the ‘aversion’ of divine wrath.

Prior to the Passover, YHWH decides to ‘pour out his wrath on the Israelites in order to expend (לְכַלּוֹת) his anger against them’ (לִשְׁפֹּךְ חֲמָתִי עֲלֵיהֶם לְכַלּוֹת אַפִּי בָּהֶם), but later declines to do so for the sake of his reputation (Ezek. 20.8–9).

By implication, then, when YHWH’s angel later ‘passes over’ Israel’s blood-covered houses, YHWH’s wrath is not simply ‘averted’ in some mysterious or unspecific sense;

rather, it is ‘expended’ on the sacrifice of the lamb.

Second, unless Jesus’ sacrifice ‘satisfies’ YHWH’s wrath, it cannot truly be said to have been penal and substitutionary.

In his death, Jesus bears a penalty which his disciples would otherwise have borne, and which, had they borne, would have been an expression of God’s aversion to sin.

If, therefore, Jesus’ sacrifice is penal and substitutionary—that is to say, if Jesus’ sacrifice rescues men and women from God’s wrath (per 3.36) by the payment of their penalty—, then it must ‘satisfy’ divine wrath.

Third, John portrays Jesus as the recipient of divine wrath in place of others, which is predicated on the notion of satisfaction (rather than mere aversion).

God prepares a ‘cup’ for Jesus (18.11)—a vessel prophetically associated with YHWH’s anger—,

and Jesus drains its contents so others might drink from the cup of divine communion.

As such, God’s wrath is ‘expended’ on Jesus rather than on his followers.

--- CONCLUSION ---

PSA is not a theological construct which needs to be imported into John’s gospel.

On the contrary, it is hard-wired into the particularities of John’s narrative and lived out by its main characters,

just as prophets like Ezekiel and Hosea ‘live out’ their prophecies.

At the outset of ch. 18, Jesus descends into the darkness of the Kidron valley, where he is betrayed by a close friend, which marks the start of the most remarkable sequence of events in world history.

Jesus hands himself over to Jerusalem’s authorities (in order to allow his disciples to escape).

Thereafter, he is led away, first to a priestly courtyard and later to a Roman-governed court.

He is tried by representatives of the Jewish and Gentile worlds—men guilty of the very accusations they make.

He is questioned, mistreated, and unjustly condemned, acknowledged as innocent by even his judge.

He is crowned with thorns and declared to be ‘the King of the Jews’ (in Jewish Aramaic, Latin, and Greek).

And, at the time of Israel’s Passover, while a known criminal is released, he is crucified.

As he hangs on the cross, the Roman soldiers divvy up Jesus’ possessions between them, while Jesus unites Mary and John as ‘mother and son’.

Shortly afterwards, Jesus becomes parched, and, moments later, he dies, almost entirely alone, surrounded by cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and wine-drenched hyssop.

Jesus’ followers return to their homes; Rome’s soldiers perform their final duties and drift away; and the silence and darkness of the Sabbath overtakes the land.

Yet, on the first day of the next week, God raises Jesus from the dead.

Jesus ascends into the heavenly realms, where he makes reparation for his disciples’ failures, and then returns to Jerusalem to speak words of peace to his disciples and breathe life into a dead world.

Fellowship is restored, sorrow is turned to joy, despondency to hope, and faithlessness to belief.

By means of the flow and symbolism of these events, John portrays Jesus’ death as a sacrifice which is (among other things) voluntary, substitutionary, penal, and propitiatory.

It will not, therefore, do to say the Gospels are unconcerned with the question of how Jesus’ death enables sinners to be forgiven.

John at least is intensely interested in the mechanics of the atonement and reflects those mechanics in his narrative with his customary brilliance.

THE END.

Please Re-Tweet.