For Us, Not Instead of Us: The Suffering Messiah - Episode 178

Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome to the follow-up from last week, episode number 177, where we were talking about the wrath of God and framing it in a different way than you will often hear from the context of evangelical theology.

[00:00:34] This is usually the context of penal substitutionary atonement. And while I wasn't trying to "take down" PSA by any means in the last episode, I was just trying to provide a different framing for the penal aspect, otherwise known as the wrath of God or the judgment of God, or the penalties that we incur upon sinning and disobeying God's law, Last week, we discussed that in the realm of Noah and the righteous remnant and the context of the exile. And the reason I did that was because with the topic of wrath and justice and judgment, we really can't go wrong with looking at the exilic context.

[00:01:22] Because this is the context where the people of God disobeyed God's law. They broke the covenant. And by doing so, they were kicked out of the land. They were exiled. They had to repent. And the hope was in return with the Messiah. That's where we get Jesus and all of this beautiful picture of the arc of Scripture and the arc of history, where God is choosing a particular people, and He builds that people for Himself.

[00:01:52] And He does not give up on that people. So even when they go astray, when they sin, when they rebel, when they break the covenant, God will continue to be faithful, not to each particular individual, but to the people as a whole. And it's a little bit hard for us, especially as individualistic westerners to really wrap our minds around that kind of communal idea of things.

[00:02:17] A lot of times here in evangelical theology in particular, we make everything in the Bible aligned with a Reformation idea of soteriology or the concept of salvation. So we read our Bibles from the lens and the perspective of everything is about individual salvation. And that is not actually the structure of what we have in Scripture. It's not how the people in the past were thinking. It doesn't mean that there is no individual salvation in the context.

[00:02:50] But we have to see that within the realm of the community and the people as a whole. So when God is promising things, he is not promising things to particular individuals. Although, individuals are going to be part of that matrix. But God is promising the people as a whole. And in order to lay hold of those promises, then an individual would have to be aligned and allegiant to Yahweh and participating in his covenant.

[00:03:21] And so you have a situation like the exile where the covenant is broken. In particular, the leaders are going astray. They're worshiping improperly. They are not enacting justice. There's bloodshed and violence. And that is a whole concept in the ancient mind that is not just physical, literal bloodshed, but applies to different types of rebellion against God's covenant and the way that God wants people to treat other people.

[00:03:53] So when you look at the whole thing from that angle, you realize that the exile has this context of the covenant faithfulness of God. And that is going to be enacted within the context of the faithful remnant of the people. And as I've talked about before, we have the biblical concept of justice, which is not just penal retribution against wrongdoers.

[00:04:18] That is why we have the wrath of God come. And it targets those things. But we also shouldn't miss the angle of justice that is about giving mercy to people who have been oppressed, giving mercy to the faithful people who have endured the situation as a whole, and they will be vindicated, they will be rescued, they will be brought back into the land.

[00:04:42] God's promises never die with those people.

[00:04:46] This is not just the realm of individual salvation, although it can be part of that. But the structure as we see in the themes of Scripture, in salvation history, is God choosing a people, creating that people supernaturally, and God is faithful to that people, even if that people is only a remnant.

[00:05:09] So you fast-forward from the exile into Jesus. You have the Messiah come, and He embodies the people of God. He is the faithful representative. He is the faithful Israelite, and this is why we have the structure that we have show up and the patterns that we have, where Jesus is a type of Adam, who was again a type of Israel himself, a forerunner, a proto-Israel, we might say. Jesus is the second Adam. Jesus is the second Israel. When we look at the work of Jesus, we need to be looking in the context of the people of God and how those thematic patterns show up through time, including prophecies like typology.

[00:05:57] It is essential when we're looking at our theology and what Jesus did and the importance of that and what it does for us who are in the new covenant. We need to read that within what's going on in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament gives us patterns to draw upon, typology to look at, and that's what we're gonna be doing today. I have a lot to say in this episode. I'm not really sure I'm gonna get through all of the themes, but we'll see what we can do here.

[00:06:24] Last week we talked about the penal aspect in Scripture. Because we are reframing things from an evangelical perspective into looking at it in a different way from the context internal to Scripture itself. This week we're gonna be getting into the context of substitution.

[00:06:44] As I said last week, this is a really difficult one because evangelical theology has not done well with it. And I do not think there is enough actual scholarly material on this topic in particular. What I'm doing right now is I'm not trying to solve that scholarly problem of the lack of information, but I am opening the door to looking at it.

[00:07:11] And because I'm doing that, we're going to be very careful and very meticulous with this.

[00:07:18] Because that's how we're going to approach this, I can't give you all of the information I would share with you in one episode. So today we're focused on a dominant pattern in Scripture, the faithful representative who brings others through judgment into life. This is Noah, but also many other people in Scripture.

[00:07:41] I'm going to make a bold claim today. I'm gonna say that the word substitution, the whole concept, we should encapsulate it into the use of something like " instead of us." Like that whole idea. And this shouldn't be really all that controversial because this is the primary evangelical scholarship that most everyone has agreed with.

[00:08:09] When we're talking about substitution, we're talking about replacement substitution. And I will probably use that as a particular technical phrase, replacement substitution or substitution replacement.

[00:08:25] I'm highlighting this very particular idea, and I'm saying that if we don't have swapping out one for the other in the idea, where the one who is swapped out no longer receives the thing that the replacement gets, then what we're talking about is not actually substitution.

[00:08:46] Someone who is representing others isn't swapping them out as a replacement. A representative is not a replacement. Even though a representative stands in for someone, that is not the same as substitute replacement. It is a different conceptual frame.

[00:09:10] When I push back about substitution in Scripture, I'm doing so from the perspective of trying to be very careful with these ideas. And I'll draw out options other than substitution replacement.

[00:09:24] A lot of people are gonna look at what the Bible says about Christ dying for us, and they think "that is clearly substitution."

[00:09:33] But there are many ways that you could see this small little word "for," and they are not all substitution replacement. I'm gonna show you today that Scripture gives us many patterns, many instances where one person suffers, or acts, or obeys, or goes ahead for others. But in many of these, we do not normally call those figures " substitutes."

[00:10:04] We don't call Adam a substitute. We don't call Abraham a substitute. We don't call Israel a substitute. Joseph All of these people are not substitutes, but they do participate in representative patterns. So then Jesus fulfills those patterns, not as a replacement punished instead of us, but as the faithful representative who enters our judged condition as humans, who carries the burden of his people, and who brings them through death into life.

[00:10:42] All of that has to be seen within the context of covenant. I will point you back to the episodes I've done about covenant because for many of us, it's a fuzzy concept, and sometimes we keep it fuzzy when we make it into relationship and things like that. It's very particular, and it's very important. If we do not understand how absolutely crucial this idea of covenant is in Scripture, then of course we're not going to understand what Jesus did or why it matters for us or how we are included in that. We have to understand the concept of covenant. Again, it is so important.

[00:11:27] Today, I'm going to say that the idea of " for us" is bigger than "instead of us."

[00:11:34] And that means we can't just use this word substitution all over the place when it can mean several different things. Scripture's representative pattern is going to give us this wider frame for understanding Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection.

[00:11:52] Now, this episode will be slightly more against the idea of PSA than the last one was, because the last episode really wasn't against PSA at all. This one, I am going to have to go into a couple of passages that are very heavily referenced for PSA. So because I'm offering an alternative reading for those, then we might say this episode is more counter to PSA than the last episode was.

[00:12:20] Keep in mind that as we do this I'm not offering another systematic theology. I'm not offering another atonement theory. I am just trying to point out what the patterns of Scripture say and what they do in the narrative of Scripture and in salvation history.

[00:12:40] Before we get into passages, I have to make some really key distinctions. I know a lot of people are gonna think I'm getting too deep in the weeds, or that this information is tedious. Somebody told me that I'm being tedious in trying to be careful, and I'm like how do we treat the context of Scripture in the work of Jesus? Are we not supposed to be careful and really articulate with that?

[00:13:07] But anyway, I am going to insist that we be as careful as possible because it does matter. It matters if Jesus is our substitute replacement in punishment, or even in satisfying God's honor, or some other idea. However you wanna put it as Jesus being a substitute.

[00:13:27] It matters if Jesus is the replacement and we are swapped out, and that He does this instead of us, or if there's actually some other kind of framing that we should put this as.

[00:13:40] And I get the idea that this is really a lot of information. This hits against several sacred cows that people hold. And yes, I do use that language intentionally.

[00:13:53] So for starters, we will want to define the difference between several categories. I am doing my definitions from the context of frame semantics, not simply word choice.

[00:14:07] The idea of substitution. I would like to contain that to the idea of replacement. This is where one person or one thing takes the place of another, so that the original person or thing does not undergo that event. So here's some normal life examples. A substitute teacher teaches the class instead of the regular teacher. The substitute teacher replaces the regular teacher. Another example would be a bench player goes into the game instead of somebody who's injured in the game.

[00:14:48] This is swapping out the people. The guy on the bench is going in for the guy who got hurt, and he's not going in as a representative. He's going in as a genuine replacement. Another example is a replacement part installed instead of a broken part. There is a genuine swap. Or a stunt double performs the dangerous scene instead of the actor.

[00:15:15] We could also have representation, right? The stunt double does it for the actor because he is representing the actor.

[00:15:24] But in the particular scene, from the context of avoiding the danger, he is being swapped out and is going in instead of the actor. If the stunt double gets hurt instead of the actor, the actor has no effect whatsoever. It doesn't impact the actor, it is not for the actor. So we can have different layers of these ideas that I'll also talk about the representation here in a minute.

[00:15:54] I really do want to keep the idea of substitution this concept of swapping out. And we do have this in Scripture. The ram for Isaac in Genesis twenty-two. This is one of the clearest biblical examples of swapping out substitution, because Isaac is bound, he's placed on the altar, he's going to be sacrificed, but instead of Isaac, Abraham offers the ram.

[00:16:21] This is explicitly said in the text. We do have a replacement logic, but later on, we will ask what that means and how you see it. Does that fit into the idea of penal substitutionary atonement, or is it something else?

[00:16:39] In a conversation recently, somebody told me, I understand why he said this, I'm not offended by it, but he said that if we just presume that it's not substitution, then aren't we just putting in what we wanna see, and we're trying to interpret the text according to what we don't wanna see?

[00:16:58] That is fair, and maybe that sometimes happens. But I can assure you that the reason I'm bringing this up, is because we want to look at it very carefully, very contextually, and I'm not just doing this in order to take out the idea of substitution.

[00:17:16] Like I said, I do think it's here, but it's gonna be very particular, and I hope you'll see that later on. Another example of swapping out is the Levites for the firstborn. Again, explicitly stated in the text. Obviously, this is not penal substitution because the Levites aren't gaining some sort of penalty. They are being chosen for service. But it is a substitution in the sense of replacement, and we can talk about that later.

[00:17:48] There are other examples in Scripture. For example, kings replacing other kings or Seth replacing Abel, and we will talk about all of those later on. So again, we absolutely do have substitution in Scripture, but we have to be very careful with what it can tell us about what's going on here theologically.

[00:18:11] Okay, so our second idea that could be put under the realm of substitution, and this is put directly under the realm of substitution by many scholars. Like I said, it's not that evangelical scholars disagree that substitution means replacement, but they will sneak in these other ideas and act like that's the same thing. They make the definition fuzzy by broadening it overall. And so they will say that, "Oh, yes, of course, representation is another form of substitution."

[00:18:44] But here's how we can see that in normal usage. A representative is a person who acts on behalf of others in a way that carries their identity, their vocation, their cause, or their future.

[00:19:00] The key idea in representation is embodied agency and action for someone else. So the representative is not necessarily replacing the person, although they could also be doing that. Okay, so we can have both things going on. Like the substitute teacher is the replacement, but also is the representative because the substitute teacher has to teach the lesson plan that the teacher had. The substitute teacher is doing something for the benefit of the teacher. They are carrying the identity and the vocation of the title of teacher.

[00:19:41] So a substitute teacher or a stunt double are doing both of these things. They're replacing and they're representing. But those are two distinct ideas.

[00:19:54] Some normal life examples of a representative is an ambassador who represents a nation before another government. Another example is an attorney who speaks on behalf of a client in court. A team captain could receive a trophy on behalf of the whole team. A union representative is going to negotiate on behalf of the workers. A parent is going to sign a document on behalf of a child because the child is not legally responsible yet. There's a lot of examples of representation, and we can see how this gets really fuzzy with the idea of replacement.

[00:20:35] But again, a representative is not necessarily a replacement. A congressman is going to speak on behalf of the people that they represent But they're not replacing or swapping out the people that they represent because it would not actually be appropriate or legal for everybody in the congressional district to show up in Congress instead of that congressman. That's not possible. That's not legal. So the representative is not swapping us out. He's just representing us.

[00:21:08] Some scriptural examples of representatives are Adam, because he is humanity's representative covenant head. His failure is not merely private, but affects the whole human family. He's not our substitute, but he is our representative in that action.

[00:21:26] Abraham is an example of a representative because he is chosen so that blessing may come to the nations through his family. He's not replacing the nations, but he carries a vocation for the sake of them.

[00:21:41] Israel as a whole is called to be Yahweh's treasured possession and a priestly kingdom among the nations. Israel isn't a substitute for the nations, but he represents Yahweh's purposes in the world.

[00:21:55] David is one that we will get to eventually, probably not today. He fights Goliath as Israel's champion. His victory becomes Israel's victory. David does not live or die instead of Israel, because if he died in that situation, Israel would still have to fight the battle or whatever else, right? But David does represent Israel in battle. A king is a good example who represents the people. And scripturally, when the king is faithful, the nation flourishes, and when the king is wicked, the people are gonna suffer. And so the king carries the people's identity and direction.

[00:22:37] And obviously, we have Jesus, who is the faithful Israelite, the Son of God. He is the Messiah, the true human, the covenant head He is representing humanity and Israel faithfully before God.

[00:22:52] Okay, so a third example that comes often under this idea of substitution. I'm going to use the word participation here. The definition is that others share in the action, the status, the victory, the suffering, the vindication, or the life of another. This does come under the idea of representation.

[00:23:16] These are not always distinct. But it is important to bring out the ideas, and the key aspect here is that of sharing in something. So participation is not, "He did it so that I don't have to, or I have nothing to do with it." It is what happens to him becomes something that I am brought into. This is just not what substitution replacement is.

[00:23:45] A normal life example would be like a team who wins the championship, and every team member shares in the victory, even if only one player scored the final goal, or even if they didn't all play. A company can succeed or fail, and the employees will share in the effects of the decisions made by the leadership. Or the citizens in a country participate in the benefits or consequences of their nation's treaties, wars, and laws. Someone who joins a community and shares in its practices also shares the identity, the commitments, and the future of that group.

[00:24:24] There's lots of examples here in Scripture. We have Noah's household in the ark. Noah is the only one who is said to be the righteous one. But his whole household enters with him and shares in that preservation. They participate in the refuge connected to Noah. I'm going to talk about the Passover and how the household slaughters, marks the door, eats the meal, stays inside, and departs the land together. They participate in Yahweh's deliverance, and the lamb is not a replacement, but the meal and the blood mark their participation in the refuge and the liberation.

[00:25:05] A great example of participation is our baptism. Believers are baptized into Christ's death and are raised to walk in newness of life. So Christ dies and he rises, and believers participate in his death and resurrection.

[00:25:21] Another obvious example here is union with Christ. Those in Christ are going to share in his death, resurrection, vindication, inheritance, and life. So Christ's story becomes the believer's story. Indeed, we are called the body of Christ. The many members participate in the one body. The life of Christ is shared communally, not merely applied in an individual fashion.

[00:25:50] Participation means Christ does not undergo the death and resurrection so that we never enter them. He undergoes them so that we may share in his passage through death into life.

[00:26:04] Another aspect of things that come under the umbrella of substitution in general in evangelical theology is mediation. This is part of a representative and participatory pattern. It is where one person stands between parties to bring reconciliation, covenant, blessing, intercession, communication, or deliverance. The key idea in mediation is go-between work. And a mediator doesn't necessarily replace either party, although they can be the representative . Sometimes the mediator creates, restores, or maintains a relationship between others.

[00:26:49] A mediator might be like a counselor who helps reconcile two family members. The counselor is not representing one person, but is mediating between the two. An attorney who is a representative, is also functioning as a mediator between the client and the court. While he is representing the client to the court, he is also doing this go-between work. And again, those are related. But they're not necessarily the same exact idea.

[00:27:22] Another idea is that we can have a diplomat who negotiates peace between nations. That diplomat might represent one, or he might not. Another example of a mediator is a translator who enables two people to understand each other.

[00:27:38] So where do we see this in Scripture? We have it with Moses, who stands between Yahweh and Israel. He receives the Torah, he intercedes after sin, and he pleads for the people. He is a covenant mediator. Now, he does represent the people, But a representative is not always a mediator, and a mediator is not always a representative.

[00:28:02] Another really obvious example of a mediator is within the priesthood. The priests mediate sacred space. They offer sacrifices. They guard holiness. They teach Torah. They maintain the sanctuary. And the priests do not simply replace the people. Although they do represent the people. But priests do representation on two fronts. They represent the people to God, but they also represent God to the people. And so they're mediating the access. They're working with purification and covenant order. The whole thing is basically what mediation really is.

[00:28:43] The prophets in general often mediate Yahweh's word to the people and plead with the people to return to Yahweh. And the prophets can also be that intersection of God with the people as well.

[00:28:57] And here's an important one, the suffering servant. The servant bears the people's burden . The context of the suffering servant is more than just Isaiah fifty-three.

[00:29:09] So then we bring that to Jesus, who is the mediator of the new covenant, our new high priest, our new intercessor. Jesus brings God and humanity together in himself in more than one way.

[00:29:24] Mediation is not replacement. A mediator does not erase the parties. He doesn't swap them out, but he can represent them, but not always. The work of a mediator is to restore relationship between parties in some form.

[00:29:41] Here we come to one of the prime examples of PSA This is the idea of vicarious suffering. The definition here is that one person suffers because of, with, or on behalf of others in a way that benefits them or carries their burden without necessarily replacing them or being punished instead of them.

[00:30:07] The key idea is burden-bearing suffering. A lot of us will hear vicarious and assume that this is substitutionary, but they're not the same thing.

[00:30:18] I promise we're gonna be looking at Scripture for these contexts. So I'm not making these up myself. I am bringing these frames to you because these are the ones that we see in Scripture. Some normal life examples that will help us to kind of understand it in our own minds.

[00:30:36] Let's say you are a parent and your child is sick, and you stay awake all night caring for your sick child. You are not a substitute, but you are bearing a burden for that child. Another example might be a firefighter who enters danger to rescue people. Who says that a firefighter is your substitute? That is just not the case most of the time. That's not how we're going to explain it. That means it's not our conceptual domain to say that somebody who's going ahead to do something for someone else is necessarily a substitute.

[00:31:14] Here's a really easy example, too. I'm trying to reach a cup in the cabinet and I can't reach it, and I ask my daughter to do that instead. You would never say that somebody helping someone is a substitute for them. Just because they're doing something that you can't do for yourself doesn't mean they are replacing you in that.

[00:31:34] If a child wrecks the family car, then the parent is going to bear the cost of that. So that's a real burden-bearing thing. But the parent is not being punished instead of the child. The parent is absorbing the damage and is going to work toward restoration of buying a new car or fixing the car or whatever else.

[00:31:58] Some prime scriptural examples here. Joseph in Genesis. Joseph suffers because of his brother's mistreatment. He is betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused, imprisoned, and eventually exalted. His suffering becomes the means by which many are preserved alive during the famine. Joseph suffers for his brothers and for other people in Egypt, but he is not punished instead of his brothers.

[00:32:29] Moses is also going to be a prime example here. He bears the burden of the people. He does intercession, and he does suffer because of their rebellion. But again, we're gonna look at that because this is a really good example of how we can see these ideas.

[00:32:46] Jeremiah suffers because he carries Yahweh's word to a rebellious people, and he embodies the grief of judgment. Jeremiah suffers with the people and for the people, but he is not their substitute replacement for that suffering.

[00:33:03] Daniel is another fantastic example. He suffers as part of the exiled people, but he's faithful. He is tested, accused, he's thrown into the lion's den, and he's vindicated. He suffers within that judged condition of the people without being the guilty cause of that judgment.

[00:33:23] The suffering servant of Isaiah fifty-three is a really big one. There's no way we're gonna get into that context , but I promise I'm gonna be sharing some material about that.

[00:33:34] Paul is another example. He suffers for the churches, even saying that he fills up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of Christ's body. That's a tough one for us to process. But at least we can say that Paul's suffering is for others, but no one is thinking that Paul is a substitute, especially a penal substitute for the church.

[00:33:58] if we bring all of these themes into Jesus, Jesus enters the judged condition of his people. He bears their sin. He bears their shame. He bears violence. Experiences a curse in some form, and certainly death, and he carries the human story through death into resurrection. So Jesus suffers for us, but for us is larger than instead of us.

[00:34:23] So here's the crux of our thesis. Vicarious suffering means that someone is bearing a burden for the sake of others. It does not automatically mean that the person is a replacement who receives a punishment or some other event.

[00:34:40] So again, those are our categories. I know I took a good bit of time to get to this but it is essential. And we will acknowledge transparently, that these categories can and do overlap, but they're not identical. A representative might suffer. A mediator may act as a representative.

[00:35:03] The reason I brought out all of those is that when we go into Scripture and we look at these typological examples, these are examples that for the most part, nobody disagrees that they are examples of Christ. And so they're going to be crucial to us, in the context of being typology for Jesus.

[00:35:24] All right, so because it took so long to draw out all of those definitions, I'm not gonna be able to get to all of the passages I was gonna get to today. So we might just get into one or two of these today. The first one we'll talk about is the example of Joseph. Joseph is the righteous sufferer who is sent ahead to preserve life.

[00:35:46] Some of you are already familiar with the idea of the suffering Messiah. A good way of talking about the suffering Messiah is to look at Messiah ben Joseph. I'll include some links in the show notes. To briefly introduce that, when we're thinking about the Messiah of Israel, a lot of times we are thinking in the context of the king, right? And this is quite natural and as it should be. Jesus is on the throne of Israel just like David, right? So David is the king of Israel, he is of Judah, and he is the typology of Jesus as a Messiah in a kingly way, which is crucial to understand Jesus.

[00:36:32] But there's no real context of David suffering in the way that we see Jesus suffer, in the New Testament. And so if David is the epitome and the previous type of the Messiah, then how do we get all of these other ideas of Jesus in the New Testament? Where does the idea of the Messiah suffering come from? Because it doesn't really seem to be encapsulated in the story of David.

[00:37:01] Within the Second Temple period, as well as afterwards, we actually have multiple types of Messiah, to the point that some Jews were thinking that maybe there were two Messiahs that would come. One would be the kingly Messiah, who comes from the line of David, and the other Messiah would be the suffering Messiah, who comes from the line of Joseph.

[00:37:24] Because note in a inheritance biological way, the line of David and the line of Joseph are not the same thing. They're different tribes. There was an idea that the Messiah would come from both lines, and whether that was one person or two people depended upon who is doing the commentary surrounding him. There was definitely this idea of the suffering Messiah, and that context is deeply embedded in the story of Joseph.

[00:37:55] It is absolutely crucial to look at Joseph's story as giving us the ingredients that we see with Jesus. Both Joseph and Jesus were the beloved son. Rejected by their brothers, stripped of their robes, cast down into a pit. That would be death for Jesus, and the idea of being cast into a pit or into the underworld is a big theme in the Old Testament as well. This isn't something we're making up. It's a real thematic pattern that people have picked up on.

[00:38:29] They are both sold for silver. They both have connections with Egypt. Both are falsely accused. They are imprisoned or judged with criminals. They are forgotten. They are exalted. They are given authority over the nations. That's a little bit harder to see with Joseph, but there is a reason also why Joseph has two lines that come from him.

[00:38:55] Both Jesus and Joseph become the means of saving the very people who wronged them. They both forgive the guilty. There is that whole context of the remnant and the covenant life.

[00:39:08] Joseph's life is a deeply Christ-shaped pattern. But the important point is this, Joseph is not his brother's substitute. He is not punished instead of them. He is not treated as guilty by God so that they can go free. He doesn't receive a penalty that belonged to them.

[00:39:29] His suffering is for them in the sense that God uses his suffering to preserve life. It is not a suffering that is instead of them in a replacement punishment type sense. So Joseph gives us a very clear biblical category and trajectory for vicarious representative suffering that is not substitutionary.

[00:39:55] Let's look at some of those details. The whole story begins with real guilt and real things going wrong. Joseph's brothers are genuinely violent, envious, deceptive, and willing to destroy the beloved son of their father. They hate him. They conspire against him. they strip him of his garment. They throw him into a pit. They sell him. They deceive Jacob with Joseph's robe, and they allow their father to live for years in grief. It's a terrible story, and it matters because Joseph's suffering is not abstract.

[00:40:33] It is suffering that is caused by the injustice of others. It's not Joseph's sin that is a problem here. Joseph is suffering because of the sin of others. So in Joseph, we have a really essential category established early in Genesis. The righteous can suffer because of the guilty without being guilty themselves, without participating in that as a replacement.

[00:41:00] The logic here is not substitution replacement. It is unjust suffering, and it is within God's will as well, by the way. It's mentioned that God turns that suffering into preservation and restoration.

[00:41:16] This concept of Joseph being cast down before he is exalted. Joseph's descent is important to the story and to the thematic pattern. He goes down into the pit. He goes down into Egypt. He goes down into slavery. He goes down into prison. We have movements of Joseph here. Even though Joseph is not guilty, the story is structured as a descent before exaltation. The descent is caused by betrayal, by injustice, false accusation, human evil. This didn't have to happen to Joseph. It was caused by his brothers being wicked.

[00:41:57] The beloved son becomes the humiliated one. The one with dreams of exaltation becomes the one whose life appears to be over and who goes down before being brought back up. This is a pattern that Scripture repeatedly gives us.

[00:42:14] Humiliation before exaltation, suffering before vindication, apparent defeat before life for others. Joseph isn't spared the suffering even though he doesn't deserve it, but he is carried through it.

[00:42:30] This connects directly to what we were talking about with Noah and also the exile. If you look at the story of Noah and you look at the story of Joseph, there are a lot of thematic patterns, a lot of linguistic connections. So Joseph's story is a pretty prime example where we see God's justice happening in spite of people's wickedness, and with those two parallel things that I was talking about before, with the wickedness as well as the idea of restoration and vindication for the righteous.

[00:43:04] what's really interesting, and I'm not gonna have time to get into all of this today, but I want to point you forward to it. Within the Joseph arc of Genesis, we have a change in a lot of people. That is not just a change in Joseph, but it is a direct change in his brothers as well. And this is a fantastic pattern that I'll bring out when I talk more about substitution replacement. But I just wanna put that on your plate here, because we're talking about wrath and retributive judgment being aimed at those who deserve it, but that also hits people who don't.

[00:43:42] But the people who deserve it actually deserve it. So the question could become, in the story of Joseph, if Joseph's brothers are wicked and evil, and they're the ones who cause Joseph's suffering, and they are the ones who should gain the consequence of God's wrath, and yet they don't in the end. I think that has a lot to do with the change that happens in Joseph's brothers throughout the story.

[00:44:10] So I will just put that on your plate for consideration for now. It's a very important point, especially when we get to the idea of where substitution replacement really does show up in Scripture, because it shows up, but it shows up in, unexpected ways, teaching unexpected things, at least compared to the framing of PSA.

[00:44:36] So again, Joseph is not a substitute, but he is absolutely for his brothers. Joseph is for them because his suffering becomes the through which they are preserved alive. He is also for them because God sends him ahead of them. He is for them because he provides bread in the famine. Because he forgives them rather than retaliating. He is also for them because the family line continues through him, and elements are going to be wrapped up in the messianic profile in him as well.

[00:45:13] So what I'm saying is that Joseph is one of the clearest examples of why "for others" does not automatically mean " instead of others." Joseph suffers for the sake of his brothers, for the sake of his family, for the sake of Egypt but he's not doing it instead of them. He suffers because of their sin, so that is important. We have that context here. But God turns that suffering into the means by which lives are preserved.

[00:45:41] And I would suggest that even wrath is averted in this situation. And that is again because of the narrative arc of Joseph's story. His brothers actually change because what they see happening in front of them with Joseph. They don't go to their father and admit what they did before they see Joseph and experience something with him.

[00:46:05] And importantly, this does wrap up with what God's purposes are. Genesis 45 is part of the theological unveiling of the story, where Joseph is revealing himself to his brothers, and understandably, they are terrified. They are expecting him to retaliate. They're expecting retribution because of their actions, because frankly, they deserved that.

[00:46:31] The one that they wronged is now in power. Their victim is now exalted far above what they ever expected him to be. The righteous sufferer now has authority over the guilty. What does Joseph do? What does he say? He tells them explicitly to not be distressed or angry with themselves because they sold him. He says that God sent him before them to preserve life. Joseph isn't telling them that they're innocent. But he also says that God has purposes in this.

[00:47:08] So we've got two levels here. My brother sold me, and God sent me. They didn't know but God is working through their sin to bring about the preservation of his entire people.

[00:47:21] And this is absolutely essential, I think, to see. Because God's plan can include unjust suffering without God being the unjust actor. It connects very directly to a lot of things we see in the New Testament, like in Acts and the Gospels. When we see what's going on with Jesus, he is delivered up according to the Scriptures, according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

[00:47:49] That doesn't mean God is trying to approve of the wickedness or wants it to happen. Importantly, Jesus is crucified by lawless men. God purposes the saving outcome, but the human actors are committing the real injustice. And so Joseph is giving us the same pattern ahead of time. His brothers mean evil, but God means preservation.

[00:48:16] This also ties into our remnant ideas from last week. Genesis forty-five, verse seven is really important here because it explicitly brings this out. Genesis forty-five, verse seven says, quote, " And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors." End quote.

[00:48:43] And of course, we know the story, and this is about the people of Israel in general as well, right? They end up in Egypt because of the situation.

[00:48:54] Here we have it framed within the continuation of promise. The promised seed in this line here, they could die in the famine. The covenant line could collapse. The family through whom blessing is supposed to come to the nations is now under threat here.

[00:49:11] But Joseph is sent ahead to preserve that remnant. Tying directly back into Noah, who is the epitome of the righteous remnant through whom life continues after the flood. Joseph is also going to preserve the covenant family through the famine. The faithful remnant in exile also preserves hope through judgment, and Jesus becomes that faithful Israelite through whom new creation comes.

[00:49:39] We can see this in the Joseph story, where he is providing bread even for the guilty. He provides food during the famine. Without Joseph, even the Egyptians would be dying. The brothers who sold him once now come to him for bread. The ones who cast him down must now receive life from his hand. So this is a reversal of what's going on. It's a picture of mercy, provision, and salvation.

[00:50:07] At the same time, his brothers are guilty. They aren't preserved because they did something to deserve it, even though they do change through the story. But they are saved because the one that they rejected has been exalted and now gives them life freely because he loves them, because he is in covenant with them, because he wants to continue God's promises.

[00:50:33] So here is a powerful Christological bridge that we have. The rejected one becomes the source of life.

[00:50:43] This is not a picture of, replacement. An important point is how much it is the case that Joseph is forgiving without requiring penalty or punishment or some sort of additional consequence to his brothers. When he forgives his brothers, he doesn't require someone to be punished first. Joseph is not requiring a substitute. He absorbs the cost that was to himself and he refuses revenge. He forgives and provides life.

[00:51:16] If we remove the context of forgiveness within Scripture and reality itself by saying that every sin, and every penalty, and every debt needs to be paid, then we are dismantling the entire idea of forgiveness.

[00:51:36] The idea of forgiveness no longer exists in that framework.

[00:51:42] And that is not a good thing in reality or in Scripture because time and time again, we have God forgiving people, asking people to repent and He will relent, asking people to turn to Him, and He will provide life.

[00:52:02] That is God's heart. He wants to forgive. He does not need to punish in order to do so because that would not be forgiveness.

[00:52:13] Forgiveness does not erase justice. Joseph's brothers have been exposed in what they did. They are experiencing shame, and they are showing that they are internally condemning themselves as well. They have gone through a process of fear, testing, confession, and reconciliation themselves in this whole story.

[00:52:36] Forgiveness cannot be accomplished by transferring their penalty onto Joseph. Joseph has already suffered because of them, but that is not instead of them. Because of Joseph's suffering and his brothers being reconciled to him, Joseph is able to use his exalted position to restore them and forgive them and bring them into relationship and life.

[00:53:03] This is the picture we see. And I don't think it's a mistake that this is our prime example, historical example of somebody vicariously suffering for others.

[00:53:15] There is no penalty being put upon him, and he is not a substitute. Now, importantly this does not by itself erase the category of PSA within Scripture. But it shows a certain framing that makes me ask the question, why do we need the idea of penal substitutionary atonement if we have the example of Joseph? If we have the idea of forgiveness?

[00:53:48] Those two things should put into question, the entire idea and the entire framework of PSA. So again, last week I wasn't really doing this. This week I kind of am. Because this is going to be crucial. I'm not going through Isaiah fifty-three today. Don't have enough time, And I probably will mostly point you to somebody else who does that anyway, and who does an excellent job, I think. You'll probably know him. At least you will be familiar with him if you listen to this podcast much.

[00:54:22] But at minimum, if we go to Isaiah fifty-three and we are leaving out the context of Joseph, then what are we even doing here? Because Joseph is quite obviously and explicitly doing what we think the suffering servant is doing in Isaiah fifty-three. And what we think Jesus is doing in his suffering, in his death.

[00:54:47] It is crucial to understand that Joseph's suffering exposes and transforms the brothers. Joseph's actions and his interactions with his brothers draw out the truth. And his brothers are forced to face what they did. And Judah in particular is going to be transformed from the brother who helped sell Joseph into the brother willing to offer himself for Benjamin.

[00:55:11] And there we go. That's an actual substitution replacement offer there. We'll talk about that later, I promise. It's crucial to see this transformation because God is not just overlooking sin. Sin is exposed with Joseph's brothers. It is exposed by the action of the unjust people crucifying our innocent Messiah.

[00:55:35] The guilty are confronted. The family is brought through a painful process of truth-telling and transformation in the story of Joseph and with the cross. But we don't always see that transformation. People don't always go through that. They don't always repent. They don't always come back into covenant relationship to God.

[00:55:57] And so here is where the question of wrath raises its head. Because the people who are in covenant with the covenant head are going to be brought through that wrath and that judgment not unscathed. They still are gonna be suffering, but they're gonna be brought forward in vindication. But we have the guilty parties who refuse to repent and who remain in their sin, and they are the ones who will receive the wrath to come.

[00:56:30] The New Testament is clear on this. There is still wrath to come, and that wrath is going to fall on those who aren't in Christ.

[00:56:39] That kind of brings together some of our ideas from the last episode and this one, but there is a whole lot more to talk about in this idea of substitution. Again, not trying to create a new system, not trying to create something radically different. I'm just looking at the patterns here, and we're gonna continue to look at the patterns.

[00:57:01] This is what we should be doing with theology. It's how we should be interpreting Scripture, exegesis, drawing the meaning out of the text, with the historical situation, with the grammar, with what's actually happening. But as I argue time and time again, so much can be seen through the themes and the patterns of Scripture.

[00:57:25] To wrap up our idea for today, Joseph is sent ahead rather than standing in the place of his brothers and being swapped out. going back to our definitions. Substitution replacement says, " I stand in your place so you do not undergo the thing." But Joseph's story says, "I am sent ahead of you so that you may live."

[00:57:52] Clear distinctions here. Substitution is instead of you. The Joseph pattern shows us going ahead of you and for your life. Representation flows through the story in many different ways. Obviously, tons of mediation in the story. Joseph stands between his brothers and Egypt and death in the famine. Obvious vicarious suffering.

[00:58:20] And our Messiah, Jesus, like Joseph, is the beloved son who is rejected by his brothers, handed over through envy, condemned injustly, brought down into death, and then exalted to the right hand of power. The guilty come to receive life from the one they rejected if they are in him. For those who are not, the wrath is still to come.

[00:58:48] So within all of that, there is no idea or hint of substitute replacement. And so Joseph's story gives us the biblical grammar for how a righteous sufferer can suffer for the guilty without being their substitute.

[00:59:05] We don't have a full picture of the cross here. There is way more than that in Scripture, and there is way more than the cross in Jesus's work as well. But we have some essential points here.

[00:59:20] To sum that up, when we get to Jesus, we should have this category ready to go. Jesus suffers because of human sin. He suffers for sinners. He is handed over according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, but that doesn't mean God is punishing Jesus instead of us.

[00:59:41] The Joseph pattern teaches us to see the righteous sufferer as the sent ahead one, the representative preserver, the exalted brother who gives life to those who rejected him. At least that is the offer, and Jesus himself wants God to forgive those who put him there.

[01:00:02] And how forgiveness actually ends up playing out and working is, not really up to us. God can forgive or he cannot. But the patterns we see in God's justice is that he doesn't allow the guilty to be punished instead of the wicked. The wicked are still going to get their comeuppance if they're not repentant, if they don't come back into covenant with God, if they don't turn from their ways and enter into this relationship with Jesus and in him.

[01:00:36] So that's a lot. I hope maybe this episode wasn't too much to handle. I think getting into the Joseph story was really good to show my point. There are so many other examples to look at. And I will leave the link in the comments because I love how Spencer Owen has drawn out the context in Isaiah fifty-three, because that is a very difficult passage.

[01:01:02] It's very hard to not come away with a PSA reading, and I understand that. But there's other ways to see it. So I will go ahead and link that in the show notes because it goes so well with the context of the Joseph story and the righteous sufferer. So go listen to that after you've listened to this, because it's absolutely fantastic. I'll still probably discuss it but there's so many other stories I want to get through in this thematic tracing that it's really great to have some other resources at hand.

[01:01:36] All right, so that is it for this episode. It was more and less than I wanted to get to today, but I hope it's helpful. Again, I'm not saying that I have done all of the scholarship necessary to properly look at the concept of substitution. It's absolutely not the case. But I do think that when we look at it from the context of conceptual frames of meaning, then that is going to help us a whole lot.

[01:02:05] Because when we overly collapse those frames, then what we end up doing is inadvertently switching conceptual domains and making something say what it really just should not say, because it's not saying that thing. And in the context of this whole thing with atonement and penal substitution and all of that, those domain swappings happen a lot.

[01:02:32] And so I'm just really irritated at the fact that we're gonna be so clumsy with this data. But it's also understandable. I'm not blaming scholars. It is understandable within the realm of scholarship.

[01:02:46] Nobody has done this work and I'm bringing it out as this is what we need to be looking at, and what needs to be addressed. If you think that PSA is still a category within Scripture, and we can hold all of these ideas in tension, and you can have a mosaic of atonement that includes replacement and participation at the same time, then here I am asking you to show me the work.

[01:03:14] Show me the exegesis that actually leads to that, because I genuinely want to see it. That work has not been done. It's assumed. And when we collapse the categories, we're creating problems, and I think we're creating situations where we have ideas that are just not there.

[01:03:35] And it matters. Because if Jesus is our substitute that God is judging Jesus instead of us, that's a very different picture than the passages we see that talk about us participating in Christ, us being in Christ, and so on.

[01:03:54] I will probably go through the context of the thematic pattern of being hidden and finding refuge, because that's another big piece of this. If God looks at us but sees Jesus instead because of his "Songlasses", is that the picture of the refuge and hiddenness that we see within the context here? I already brought some of that out last week. But what will be helpful is going through all of that thematic pattern, at least as much as we possibly can reasonably, and asking, "Is that what's going on?"

[01:04:29] You can see how there's so much to talk about here, and I hope that this has been helpful. And I really do say that if you think that there's exegetical grounding, I want to see it. I really do. So just throwing that out there. At any rate, I will end for now. I appreciate you guys listening. I appreciate you sharing these episodes. This one might be a good one to share but probably want to point them to the previous one as well. A big shout out to my Patreon and PayPal and community supporters. You guys absolutely rock, and I deeply appreciate all of you. But that is it for this week, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.