Instead of Isaac: The Ram and the Logic of Replacement - Episode 180

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 I have promised you guys an episode about substitution replacement, and I'm sure that you will all be really surprised when I say that it's going to be more than one episode.

[00:00:31] As I've been doing all of this digging into the ideas with the language and the concept and all of the places where we might see it, there are a lot of places, believe me. A lot of places where either it shows up very explicitly or it shows up in a conceptual way potentially. And of course, we're not gonna have time to get through all of those, so I'm sifting through them and trying to find what we can do, and maybe all of the work to actually look at all of the passages will be for another type of project than a podcast.

[00:01:07] But in any case, I want to remind everyone that we aren't creating a new system here. We're looking at thematic patterns, and we're looking at exegetical meaning within particular passages. And in the end, we are looking at things from a narrative and canonical perspective.

[00:01:27] And for those of you new to the conversation, you've dropped right into the middle of a deep dive into substitution and all of the ideas there. And I say it's a deep dive, but it's not nearly a deep enough dive. We're not just diving straight into some new formulation of an idea here. And I know that might be a little bit disappointing for people because when we challenge ideas, we want to have something that is similar to replace those ideas with. But that's not really how I tend to try to do things, even though, of course, I do my own type of synthesizing and systematic.

[00:02:12] Any time you come to a text that you believe is really comprehensive in a overarching way that gives you a complete picture that is not contradictory within itself you are going to end up with something that looks like a system or a picture or something like that.

[00:02:30] For me, one of those ways that we do that is through typology. But that is very different from a systematic theology kind of perspective. Because in typology, we're allowing the pattern to build. In typology and in studying a theme, when we're looking at the patterns and the instances of the theme in the text, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between an antitype and a type. In other words, the early instance of it and the fulfillment in Christ of the type. The patterned nature of typology is that each of these particular types usually adds to the typology and the picture. It's like building a story as we go, so that when we get to Jesus, we have a fuller picture than we had in Joseph when we're talking about the suffering servant.

[00:03:27] I think that sometimes there's a perception that we take this to mean, in effect, that what Jesus did can be new in a way that the previous types weren't. For instance, so what if Joseph wasn't a substitute himself? That doesn't mean that the typology of the suffering servant leading to Jesus cannot be a substitute. And to that I would say, absolutely, I would agree. It's not necessary to have all of the pieces in Joseph in order to lead to Jesus.

[00:04:03] But a couple of things here. The fulfillment of the pattern either needs to come out of the pattern that is developing, meaning somewhere along the line in the typology we have the idea. And honestly, I would want to see it within the book of Genesis, but if you want to see it a little bit later, that's fine too, but I want to see where it is. I want to see where it shows up.

[00:04:29] But the other option we have is that it doesn't really explicitly show up within that particular theme, but that it can come from two themes combined or something like that. But in such a case, that needs to come from the New Testament authors providing this kind of new revelation in showing us what Jesus is doing in new ways. And this kind of new revelation does happen, for instance, in the book of Hebrews and with the story of Melchizedek.

[00:05:06] I believe that the author of Hebrews is also combining purification and covenant sacrifices in ways that we don't see previously done. And this is a fine thing because the New Testament authors are part of our revelation just as much as the Old Testament authors were. But what we can't do is just continue that progression of addition to revelation outside of Scripture. In other words, the progression of historical systematic theology within the church doesn't count the same as what's going on in Scripture.

[00:05:43] In other, other words, I don't care what historical systematic theology says when I am exegeting the biblical text. Systematic theology can be helpful, and it can even be right, but it is not my lens for understanding Scripture.

[00:06:04] So I'm going to say when somebody asks me why am I doing this? Why am I digging this deeply into the text and asking the questions and challenging the notions? Well, this is why. Because I want my theology to come from the Bible and not from Christian tradition, right as that may possibly be.

[00:06:27] But here's the thing. I think we all can agree that later tradition occasionally gets off the rails in some things, at least in one tradition or another, because they don't all agree. A good example is the understanding of the supernatural worldview of Scripture. That is not always seen within historical systematic theology, and yet it is very core to Scripture. And so the fact that systematic theology can miss these large pieces of context that gives a lot of framework to Scripture, that should tell us that we need to ask the even more uncomfortable question of where did historical theology also go off the rails with important doctrinal theology? Because I'm kind of going to assume that it did, and that assumption is gonna be helped by the fact that we just don't have a singular answer in Christian historical theology anyway.

[00:07:26] I know I keep talking about the why and the importance of this, but it's really crucial. This isn't just for digging into the text for information's sake or to just get more into the weeds. This really is to make sure that what we're doing in our theology is grounded in the biblical text. And I don't want to say anything against scholars and theologians as if they're not doing good work or that they are just always wrong. But I do think we should be asking these questions, and I think we should be trying to be as careful as we can.

[00:08:05] And we can't expect everybody to be focused on the same things. I don't care who you are, you are going to have to draw upon the work of other scholars and other theologians. And so I'm not blaming people for doing that. This is what we have to do . But somebody needs to be out there asking the questions.

[00:08:25] All right. So I'm gonna call you back to the last two episodes where I have been framing out the ideas of substitution, at least substitution as a really wide umbrella category. And up to now, I have been talking about representation more than I have been talking about substitution replacement. And we've been discussing a few passages where many scholars will go for the substitution replacement logic. And I've shown that there are different ways you can see that, that it does not have to lead to substitution replacement, and that I would argue that it does not lead to that.

[00:09:04] But I'm not denying that there are places where we have substitution. And to again clarify that definition, by substitution replacement, I mean that one person or animal or object or payment or group is taking the place of another so that the replaced party does not undergo the same role, fate, obligation, service, death, claim, or consequence. It's a very narrow definition, but it fits the framing of substitution inside a general idea of penal substitutionary atonement, or PSA, where Jesus takes the penalty instead of us as our literal replacement in the punishment, judgment, wrath, or paying the penalty, whatever words you wanna call upon.

[00:10:07] Within PSA, it is Jesus replacing us in that. That's why it's called PSA. By Jesus taking on what we do not, then reconciliation with God is attained. That is the idea of PSA, and it does require substitution replacement.

[00:10:29] But I do want to acknowledge that people who are proponents of PSA do not reject the idea of Jesus also representing us or us having some participatory role in some way in what Jesus did. But I do think that PSA requires replacement logic at its core.

[00:10:53] Our later question that we will ask as we get further along, but still not today, is the question of whether or not it is coherent and biblical to have a replacement logic in this way. I've already tipped my hand a little bit because I've suggested we can't have it and have God forgiving because forgiving a debt is not the same as asking for that debt to be paid, or for the penalty's consequence to go through.

[00:11:25] But I know that's not enough in the conversation. Because what about ransom language? If we are being ransomed, doesn't that concept require payment? That's a difficult question we'll look at in the data.

[00:11:41] But today, we are talking just primarily about this idea of substitution replacement. And again, scholars or theologians or pastors will treat several different ideas as if they're basically the same thing. And in fact, in many conversations, people will bring up these things as if they necessarily lead to PSA, as if all Christians everywhere don't say these kinds of things that directly come from Scripture. Although some of them don't, and I'm gonna point those places out where it doesn't.

[00:12:16] All Christians will say that Jesus died for us, that He died on behalf of us. But the question is, does that mean he died instead of us? I mean, we do still die after all.

[00:12:30] All Christians will say that Jesus represents us, that Jesus bore our sins, that he suffered, that he gave his life as a ransom.

[00:12:40] Not all Christians will say in the same way, meaning the same thing, that Jesus became a curse for us. But I think it's fair to say that everybody will agree that Jesus carried us through death into resurrection. Now, some of those ideas overlap, and some of them belong together in certain texts, but they're not all identical, and they're not all exegetical. They don't all come from the text.

[00:13:08] Today, our topic is going to be to distinguish replacement from those related categories and to see where it shows up. We've already done some of the work to disambiguate some of the ideas. A person can act for someone else and even die for someone else without replacing them in a situation.

[00:13:30] Joseph suffers and is sent ahead for the preservation of life, but he's not suffering instead of anyone else. The reason that people are avoiding the famine is because Joseph is sent ahead not because Joseph participates in the famine instead of anyone else. If he was a true replacement, what he would do would be everybody's starving and Joseph gives his food to somebody else. That might be kind of the idea that we could have, but that's not what's going on in the story.

[00:14:05] When we come down to the idea of replacement or substitution, again, I'm gonna interchange those words. I have a suspicion. I don't know if I'm right. I'm gonna keep it as a suspicion for now. But I'm suggesting the idea that the biblical authors may be more cautious with substitution replacement than much of our atonement language has been.

[00:14:31] There are places where replacement is commanded. Sometimes it's just part of ordinary life. Sometimes it is just graciously provided or offered. But sometimes an offering of replacement is refused. Sometimes it's offered but not enacted. Sometimes it comes through injustice. Sometimes the person who wants to die instead of another cannot actually do it.

[00:15:00] And my suspicion is that what the biblical authors are doing is flipping the logic on its head. Instead of God requiring a replacement and requiring punishment and requiring substitution, maybe the story is that God doesn't want that.

[00:15:23] Not that that can't be offered. Not that it can't be part of the pattern that somebody will offer themselves for another. But I have a suspicion, again, just a suspicion, that the thematic patterns we'll see lean more towards the idea that God doesn't want it. That he does not want substitution replacement.

[00:15:49] That's just my kind of hypothesis. I'm not going to try and force it into the text. At least I hope not. But it is my offering of a challenge for traditional ideas. So our central research question here is that when someone or something takes the place of another in Scripture, we need to ask what kind of a place is being taken and what does the text say that replacement accomplishes?

[00:16:21] As I like to do, here are a few questions for your own exploration of the topic. My first question: What is being replaced? Is it a person, an object, a role, a life, a payment, a vocation, or a fate? Those are just a few options.

[00:16:42] Number two: Who or what does the replacing, and who is suggesting the replacing? So we have the question of what is being replaced and who is doing the replacing.

[00:16:55] And number three: What does the replaced party avoid or not experience? Is it death? Is it service? Is it slavery? Is it a claim of ownership? Is it judgment, or is it nothing at all?

[00:17:12] Question number four: Is the replacement accepted, commanded, rejected, interrupted, or morally compromised?

[00:17:24] Question number five: Is the replacement penal? Is punishment actually being transferred? Is there any retribution going on, or is the frame something else?

[00:17:38] Final question, number six: Does a later biblical author connect this pattern to Jesus? Because if they don't, we should be very cautious about claiming things that the biblical authors themselves are not saying.

[00:17:56] All right. And I'm gonna go ahead and give you a bunch of places to look because I don't know how much of this we're gonna be able to dig into ourself. I'm gonna be talking about Leviticus fourteen, although that won't be one of our most extensive passages. We'll be bringing up Genesis four, Genesis nine, Genesis twenty-two, Numbers chapter three and chapter eight, Exodus thirty-two, Genesis forty-four, Numbers thirty-five, John eleven, the story with Barabbas at the death of Jesus, and second Corinthians chapter five. There are a whole bunch of other places we could go, but that's the list I'll give you for starters.

[00:18:45] I know we all want to jump right into the story with Abraham and Isaac and the ram. But let's go ahead and set the stage with something a little bit more ordinary and far less dramatic, the stones within a house. If we're gonna understand replacement language, we need to understand how the language is actually used in an ordinary fashion. That's gonna help us to understand the words, and understanding the whole framing of them before we get into theologically loaded passages.

[00:19:19] All right, so my goal here at first is to show that replacement language has a range, and the range of the language in the actual Hebrew needs to be respected. So we have language that really does mean instead of, but it doesn't automatically mean penal substitution. It doesn't even mean sacrifice. But it does have this basic meaning that I'm trying to get at here. One thing, person, or role occupies the place of another thing, person, or role. This is genuine replacement.

[00:19:57] So our first example is going to be in Leviticus fourteen, and this is the law for cleaning houses. I know, very exciting, right? I'm sure many of you have poured nightly over this passage for days upon days, right? Where they're doing the cleansing of a house that had mold. Absolutely riveting text here, right?

[00:20:21] So, there is a process here. There is ritual behind what's going on. The house is unclean. It has mold or some sort of disease, it says. Starting in Leviticus fourteen, verse forty, it says, quote, " Then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which is the disease and throw them into an unclean place outside the city. And he shall have the inside of the house scraped all around, and the plaster that they scrape off, they shall pour out in an unclean place outside the city. Then they shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and he shall take other plaster and plaster the house." End quote.

[00:21:07] See, I knew you guys would have this passage absolutely memorized already. But I quoted it anyway because we just love it so much. Now, this is a very normal circumstance. It feels normal to us, right? Now, granted, the replacement language is in a purification context, so that can be acknowledged, but it's still pretty just ordinary and normal. The stones that have some form of mold that isn't being killed or taken care of, they're removed, they're taken outside the city to an unclean place so that they can't contaminate anything else. Other stones are brought, and they are put in the place of the removed stones, and then they replaster the house. If the problem persists, the chapter goes on to say that the whole house may be torn down.

[00:21:59] Now, we could take this passage, and we could extrapolate some allegorical meaning, and, you know, maybe that's there. But at minimum, what we can see is that there really is replacement logic going on. One thing is removed, and another thing is put where it was.

[00:22:17] And one of my points here is if the language of replacement can be this ordinary and normal, then the language and the wording itself cannot just carry the whole concept of substitution in some sort of theological way. Context has to tell us what kind of replacement is actually happening.

[00:22:40] Let's go on to another example. This one is in Genesis four, twenty-five. After Cain kills Abel, Adam and Eve have another son, and Eve says that God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. So this gives us another kind of replacement. It's not object replacement, but it's family line replacement. Seth is given instead of Abel, and the replacement logic here is of favored son or inheritance.

[00:23:19] Seth isn't replacing Abel by undergoing Abel's fate because Abel is already dead. Seth does not die in Abel's place. He doesn't receive Abel's punishment or his consequence. He's not bearing any guilt or anything like that. But Seth occupies the place that Abel would have occupied as the beloved offspring, as the continuing seed, and as the one through whom the family line continues.

[00:23:50] So our basic story here is that Cain kills Abel. Abel's place in the family line is lost through murder, and God appoints another offspring. So this is the context we have where Seth is there instead of Abel. The text is emphasizing divine appointment and continuation of the promise after violence. It is about lineage replacement or succession. It is replacement after something has already been lost. I think that's very crucial to understand in this context and perhaps moving forward. When something happens, and that something has threatened the promise, then a replacement will come in to continue the promise.

[00:24:40] So here, in place of can mean replacement in physical location, perhaps. They did not have a physical son who would be the promised offspring or the one to inherit things. Again, it's a replacement in a family role, the continuing line, and it is a restoration after sin and death and violence have threatened the family's future.

[00:25:07] So Seth is instead of Abel, but no one should hear that and immediately think, " Ah, yes, this is PSA." Seth is not punished instead of Abel. Seth doesn't die instead of Abel. Seth doesn't bear any guilt. He is the one who lives when Abel died. There is a rupture, and God still provides after that rupture. So replacement here is about continuity after loss.

[00:25:37] So already, near the very beginning of Genesis, we have replacement language, and it is appearing in a world marked by death, violence, and threatened promise. It is God's provision of another offspring where violence had previously cut the old one off. For this episode, I want us to notice that this is a kind of replacement that the text actually gives us. Replacement as continuity.

[00:26:05] And this is a pattern that shows up very frequently with replacement in Scripture. Exodus twenty-nine has some instructions concerning priestly garments and consecration, specifically the holy garments of Aaron. They are passed to his sons after him. The son who succeeds him as priest wears them for seven days when he enters the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place. So here the idea is that the son is serving in his place. Another form of replacement that is actually very similar to the last one, but it's not family line replacement, but vocational and office replacement.

[00:26:48] All right, so these three examples all together. Leviticus fourteen, one stone replaces another stone. Genesis four, one son or offspring replaces another in the promised family line. Exodus twenty-nine, one priestly son replaces his father in office. These are all replacement, but none fit the pattern of penal substitution.

[00:27:15] Replacement concepts are real, but it is not self-interpreting that we just are going to lead with something that is going to go into PSA for that. This is not proof against anything, but it is proof that we have the idea and it is in their heads in a certain way.

[00:27:35] Now certainly, the Bible uses for and in place of language in much more serious contexts, especially where life, blood, violence, and justice are concerned. So before we're gonna talk about one life being given for another in a redemptive sense, as some sort of possibility anyway, we need to look at the Bible's life for life logic. And that's not beginning with atonement, but with the image of God.

[00:28:10] Once people hear the idea of a life for a life, they can immediately import atonement categories into that. But it's not automatically that. It is often about direct correspondence and accountability and what we might call justice equivalence. So the logic here is not saying that an innocent person may die instead of the guilty. In fact the key texts seem to say the opposite.

[00:28:42] Genesis nine, verses five and six say, quote, " And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast I will require it, and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." End quote.

[00:29:07] This passage, I believe, is crucial because it's giving us a theological grounding for human life after the flood and what it means for life to be in the blood, and if that lifeblood is taken, then lifeblood is going to be required from the murderer. The reckoning applies to beasts and human beings, and then we get this key line where it's actually a little poem about shedding the blood of a human and humanity being in the image of God.

[00:29:39] This is, of course, the post-flood covenantal context with Noah and his descendants. And so it's got broad creation and humanity significance. The logic is that human life is sacred as the image of God, and human bloodshed demands reckoning. Violence against a human is not merely violence against an animal or property, but it has a higher connotation than that. And so the shedding of human blood creates a claim for justice.

[00:30:11] We do not have any kind of a context suggested or even as a possibility that an innocent person can die instead of the murderer. It's really the opposite. A murderer is now owing his life because he took the life of another. It's a really interesting question because Cain took the life of Abel, and yet God did not take Cain's life. And it's a really fascinating question as to why that is. But what we can at least say is that after the flood, we do have this justice accountability frame.

[00:30:47] I'm pointing all of this out because some atonement arguments will jump from sin deserves death, justice requires life for life, therefore, Jesus dies instead of us. But Genesis nine isn't authorizing a third-party innocent death in place of the guilty. It grounds accountability in the person who sheds the blood. So if someone wants to argue for substitution replacement at the level of penalty, they're gonna need more than this language. We're gonna need to find where Scripture allows, commands, or develops the specific kind of replacement where an innocent person is going to be an acceptable substitute for the person who's guilty.

[00:31:35] And so far, we have responsibility is going to be pushed onto the one who shed the blood, and that is what we have, right? You'll see the same language reflected in Leviticus and many other places.

[00:31:50] Now, maybe you'll be able to find somewhere in Scripture where the theme of this gets developed in a way where God will allow an innocent party to take the place of somebody else. If anybody finds a place like that, I would love to know. For now, we're just gonna keep pushing forward into the ideas.

[00:32:10] Of course, we have Exodus twenty-one, verses twenty-three through twenty-five, which say, quote," But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." End quote.

[00:32:33] This is, of course, a very famous passage and very much within a legal context. The frame here is what I would call a justice equivalence or measured correspondence frame. The point is not necessarily literal mutilation in every case, but the broader legal principle is that the response must correspond to the injury. Many theologians and scholars have brought out the idea that what this is doing is preventing injustice in the sense of escalation. It does not allow vengeance to spiral beyond the offense. So the frame here is proportional justice, legal correspondence, recompense, and measure for measure.

[00:33:21] This is not substitution replacement. No innocent third party is taking the place of the guilty. But we do get the life for life language. It is not in the context of atonement or ransom, but we do have legal equivalence. This fits with Genesis nine and is really part of a world where human life has sacred weight and violence can't simply be ignored. But nor should the punishment go beyond the offense.

[00:33:51] We have this established as well in Numbers thirty-five, the very end of the chapter, starting in verse thirty-one. It says, quote, " Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. " End quote.

[00:34:09] Now, this is going to be an interesting one that we'll come back to with the idea of ransom. But we have a logic here. Blood is polluting the land, and we know from the end of Leviticus that no atonement can be made for the land, for the shed blood in it, except for the blood of the one who shed it.

[00:34:29] At minimum, I think what we can say is that it shows that ransom is not universally available. Ransom may be allowed in some contexts. The firstborn can be redeemed. The census ransom averts plague. But in the case of murder, ransom is forbidden. That's an important point because it shows that if we believe that the Bible is consistent, it's not treating life replacement or payment as a general mechanism for guilt.

[00:35:00] So there are limits on exchange. Not every claim can be paid off. Not every transgression can have a way to deal with it other than the direct correspondence.

[00:35:14] I want you to notice, too, that the problem is not merely individual guilt. Blood pollutes the land, and Yahweh dwells in the midst of the people. And so it's a problem when the land is polluted. The issue is not only what happens to the murderer, but also what happens to the land, the community, and the presence of God among them.

[00:35:36] Now let's move into where we have replacement that is actually commanded by God. One of the places we see that are where the Levites are taken instead of the firstborn of Israel. I mentioned this one last week, and it is a real replacement. One group occupies the claim, the role, and the service that would otherwise belong to another group. But the frame here is certainly not punishment, but it includes Exodus deliverance, Yahweh's claim on the firstborn, consecration, sanctuary service, priestly and Levitical vocation, and redemption or payment for the numerical remainder of the people. So here we have very explicit replacement logic that there is zero penalty transfer and is all about vocation and service.

[00:36:34] Exodus chapter thirteen is where God tells Moses to consecrate all the firstborn. And we see that the lamb cannot be the replacement for the Israelite firstborns because this is where that shows up. The firstborn do belong to Yahweh because of what happened. They are spared when Egypt's firstborn are struck down, and that is the logic that leads to the firstborn being consecrated to Yahweh.

[00:37:02] Continuing on in Exodus thirteen, the firstborn animals and the sons are handled differently. And I'm bringing both of them up because remember, we have animals and humans who died in the Egyptian plague. The firstborn clean animals are given to Yahweh. The firstborn donkey is redeemed with a lamb or its neck is broken. The firstborn sons are redeemed, and the explanation is tied directly to the Exodus. Yahweh killed the firstborn of Egypt, but spared and redeemed Israel's firstborn.

[00:37:39] So the frame is not guilt transfer, but belonging because of deliverance. They don't require a substitute punishment. But they are claimed because Yahweh redeemed them in the Exodus.

[00:37:53] We have the firstborn who belong to Yahweh, but then we get to Numbers chapter three, and in verse twelve it says, quote, " Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the people of Israel. The Levites shall be mine, for all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the firstborn of Israel, both of man and of beast. They shall be mine. I am the Lord." End quote.

[00:38:30] And so this is substitution replacement, but it is cultic vocational substitution. Instead of Yahweh killing the firstborn, He consecrated them as His own, and then instead of all of the firstborn needing to serve in the tabernacle, then Yahweh exchanged the firstborn with the Levites. This is clearly not being punished instead of, but it is serving instead of.

[00:38:57] I would say that this is where substitution replacement logic is in the clearest possible sense. Yahweh is taking one group instead of another. The Levites are replacing the firstborn. But again, what kind of replacement is this? It's not penal, it's not punishment, but it's vocational. It is about service.

[00:39:24] Numbers three also has kind of an interesting point here as well, because there's more firstborn males than there are Levites. So that means there's extra firstborn, and they need to be redeemed with money. Numbers chapter three, verse forty-six gives a redemption price for the firstborn over and above the number of the male Levites. So the Levites are replacing the firstborn, but that count doesn't really match, and so there's a surplus, and that surplus is redeemed with money. The money is given to Aaron and his sons, and so it's within the same framework and the same conception of what's going on.

[00:40:08] This is a great example of replacement, because we have replacement by people and in a group, redemption by payment, sanctuary and priestly context, Yahweh's claim on life, and no penal logic in sight. So ransom or redemption language does not automatically mean someone is punished instead of someone else, but it is tied to belonging to Yahweh's claim and to serving Yahweh.

[00:40:39] Numbers eight retells and deepens the Levite logic. The Levites are described as wholly given to Yahweh from among the people of Israel. Yahweh says he has taken them instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of Israel. But Numbers eight also says that the Levites are given to Aaron and his sons to do the service of the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel so that there may be no plague among the people when they approach the sanctuary.

[00:41:14] Remember, with all of these texts, we're building layers and we're making the story deeper. And this adds another layer. The Levites are taken instead of the firstborn. They are given from among Israel. They are presented or waved before Yahweh. They serve Aaron and his sons. They do the service of the people at the tent of meeting. And their service protects Israel from plague associated with improper approach to the sanctuary.

[00:41:45] It is still associated with that sacred space. The Levites are standing in for all of Israel's firstborn in relation to the sanctuary. They carry out service that protects the community from approaching that sanctuary in a wrong way.

[00:42:02] This isn't about absorbing wrath, but they are mediating access and they are creating order through their service. The mediation happens through vocation and service to the tabernacle, not through being punished instead of everyone else. The issue is how a redeemed but still vulnerable people can live near the presence of God without collapsing the boundaries of sacred space. The Levites stand in the gap, so to speak, by service and consecration.

[00:42:34] Now, of course, the firstborn logic is solidly rooted in the Passover event, but the development is, at least at this point, not telling us any penal aspect still. But it is developing in terms of Yahweh's claim on the firstborn, consecration, redemption, service, and sanctuary protection and mediation.

[00:42:59] All right, so far we have seen ordinary replacement, family line replacement, office replacement, justice equivalence. We've seen limits on ransom. And now we see a commanded cultic replacement with the Levites. But there's another text that feels much closer to the question that people usually have in mind because it does involve an animal, an altar, and a son under the threat of death.

[00:43:29] So here is our obvious substitution text, Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac.

[00:43:37] Now certainly, we do have substitution replacement logic going on here. And it is in a sacrificial setting. But is it giving us any penal substitution? Is it giving us any guilt transfer? Is it giving us any wrath absorbed by an innocent victim? I think the answer to all of those is obviously no.

[00:44:01] Now that does not necessarily remove the context of PSA. But we have to look very carefully at the text. So let's set up the narrative here. The beginning of the chapter of Genesis 22, we already know, we're told that God is testing Abraham. So this isn't a secret for the reader, at least, that it's a test. God commands Abraham to take Isaac, his son, his only son whom he loves, and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that God will show him.

[00:44:39] So we have Isaac's identity really solidly in place here. He isn't just Abraham's child. He is the promised son. He is the son through whom the covenant line is supposed to continue. So the crisis is not just an emotional one from the perspective of a father, but it is theological and covenantal. If Isaac dies, what happens to the promise?

[00:45:05] God is testing Abraham. Isaac is the promised son. Isaac is carrying the wood. Abraham carries the fire and the knife. Isaac asks where the lamb is. Abraham says that God will provide for himself the lamb. Isaac is bound. He is placed on the altar. Abraham stretches out his hand with the knife. The Angel of the Lord stops him. Abraham then sees the ram caught in the thicket, and the ram is offered instead of Isaac. Abraham names the place in relation to Yahweh's provision.

[00:45:44] Now, we should notice how long Genesis twenty-two makes us wait before the ram appears. The story isn't just one of a substitute being provided. It begins with us knowing that this is a test, knowing that we have a promised son. And the context of the test is Abraham's obedience. Isaac is coming along in that obedience because he is also carrying the wood, and he's asking his father, " Where is the lamb?" And Abraham tells him that God will provide.

[00:46:16] Is Abraham just trying to trick his son or comfort his son or make sure that Isaac doesn't know what he's about to do? It's possible. But I just want you to notice that the replacement logic is real, but it arrives inside the larger narrative about promise, obedience, testing, and divine provision.

[00:46:37] And there's a few questions that I have for you as well.

[00:46:41] First of all, if this is genuine, accepted substitution replacement in a PSA kind of a way, does that not presuppose that God really did want the sacrifice of Isaac? This is a hard question. It's a very difficult question because the text does not give us a whole lot of detail in ways that we want it to, at least in English.

[00:47:12] There are a number of Hebrew scholars, including Jewish scholars, who point out a lot of this underlying language that we don't notice. There is a book I will mention by Richard Middleton called Abraham's Silence. If you haven't read it, I really highly recommend it. It digs into the language, and it digs into the Hebrew conception of things and what's going on between Abraham and God here.

[00:47:41] And those things are not clear to us in English, but they are suggested in the Hebrew in some of the repetition and the language and patterns that we see in what's going on with the exchange between Abraham and God. And what I'm gonna suggest to you is that as part of the test that he is given, God wants Abraham to argue with him.

[00:48:05] That's hard for us Americans in particular to really understand because we don't really have an argumentative culture. But there are cultures in the world that highly prize negotiation. And I've heard from Americans who have been over to the Middle East, and it's shocking to them that everyone over there wants to argue. It's just a matter of course. Like, you're supposed to negotiate. And I know that some of us Americans also get that. If you're listing a car or a house for sale, or if you do Facebook Marketplace or something like that, you might be presuming that people are gonna haggle with you.

[00:48:44] So it's not like we don't have that, but on a personal level, we really don't within our culture. We don't want everybody to argue and haggle all of the time. We really kind of keep it to explicit economic transactions. But I'm suggesting to you that in the Bible, it has a kind of a culture where an argument is meant to happen. This is just the way people interact.

[00:49:09] Couple of places I will point you to for that in Scripture is the context of Abraham again before Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham and God are talking. God is telling Abraham that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness. Abraham comes back and says, "Well, what if there's righteous people there?" And God says, "Well, okay, if you can find me this..." and then there's that haggling. And some scholars have suggested that Abraham stops before the point he knew that God would actually spare the city. Maybe if he had gone down to the number five, then God would have actually spared Sodom and Gomorrah. Of course, that's just speculation, but it is a bit strange that Abraham stopped where he did.

[00:49:57] We also see Moses haggling with God after the golden calf incident. When God says, "I'm gonna go down and kill everybody because I'm tired of all of this nonsense, and they deserve to die," Moses reminds God of his promise and haggles with God, and then God relents. He does not destroy everybody, although he still says there's gonna be consequence, and that consequence is gonna fall upon the people.

[00:50:25] Another place we could see this is in the Book of Job. The story of Job with his suffering, and his friends come along and try to tell him all of these reasons why he's suffering. And Job's response is really to wrestle with God and say, "Look, I don't deserve this. What is up with it?" So those are just a few places I will point you to and suggest maybe go find some more.

[00:50:49] Bringing that back into Genesis 22, God is telling Abraham, and remember, this is a test, to go sacrifice his son. And Abraham had just been drawn out from a people of pagans who did not worship Yahweh and presumably had really bad worship practices and perhaps did things like child sacrifice. And so God telling Abraham, "Go sacrifice your son," maybe Abraham's like, "Well, okay, this is just what we do." He's used to those kinds of requests in his culture. And perhaps the arguing that God wanted from Abraham was to say, "No, you gave me this promised child. Now you're asking me to kill him? That is against your witness of who you are, God." But Abraham doesn't do that, and he works to still follow through the process, but God stops him.

[00:51:48] So then the question is, did Abraham succeed or fail in the test? Well, from the perspective of just sheer obedience, Abraham certainly succeeded. And the New Testament tells us that Abraham had the expectation that God would bring Isaac back to life. And that is the pattern that the New Testament uses this chapter for. The hope for resurrection.

[00:52:16] I think we could see that the central question seems to be Abraham's fear of God and trusting and being obedient, and contrasting that with his relationship to the promised son. Even though Abraham is gonna go ahead with this action, and he's gonna kill his son, he still says that God will provide.

[00:52:37] We could presume that maybe he's just trying to soothe or trick his son, but the ram is provided though. Notice it's a ram and not a lamb like they were talking, so that's interesting. And the place is named with reference to Yahweh's provision. So clearly we do have the preservation of the promise, and covenant promises are reaffirmed after the test. Whether Abraham totally failed or only partially failed or whatever, we can tell that Abraham is at least fully obedient to God.

[00:53:11] Maybe God wanted him to argue, and he didn't. But I think the end of the story is that God is consistent in His character. He is not a deity who actually wants the child sacrifice.

[00:53:26] And I think if we are presuming that the replacement logic in the story of Isaac and the ram, if we are presuming that this is what God asked for, that God wants a substitute like this... and PSA is arguing for this. PSA uses this text to argue for the exchange of life. But I don't think we can go there because that would presume that God wanted the life. And I think instead, what is going on in the story is that God is showing Abraham, who came out of a pagan context, that he is different from the other gods.

[00:54:11] Yahweh is not the same as the gods that Abraham has previously known.

[00:54:18] The idea of God providing. There's a couple of different things here, because obviously, we have God providing Isaac to Abraham. Isaac is the promised son who was conceived with supernatural intervention. And God is also the one who provides the ram for the offering.

[00:54:39] But do we then say that God provided the ram instead of Isaac? Is that actually the logic? Because that logic would mean that God really did want Isaac, and he just took the ram as a substitute.

[00:54:58] Let's look at the narrative of Genesis twenty-two itself. Verse ten, Abraham reaches out his hand, takes the knife, he's gonna kill his son. Verse eleven, the Angel of the Lord says, "Hold on, hold on. Abraham, here I am." Verse twelve, the Angel of the Lord says, "Don't do it. I know that you fear God, and that you have not withheld your son."

[00:55:23] Verse thirteen is when Abraham sees the ram caught in the thicket. And, quote, "Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son." End quote.

[00:55:38] So God provides the promised son, and he does provide the ram. But God is not instructing Abraham to offer the ram. It says explicitly, " Abraham offered it up instead of his son." So maybe this is being a little nitpicky. I don't think so, though. The Angel of the Lord didn't say, " Hang on, don't kill your child. We have a ram instead." Instead, what happened was the Angel of the Lord stopped Abraham.

[00:56:12] Abraham did stop. He wasn't gonna do it after the Angel of the Lord said stop. So Abraham is being obedient, and it is at this moment that Abraham sees God's other provision in the ram. And from Abraham's perspective, the ram is offered instead of his son because Abraham really was about to kill his son, and now he's going to kill the ram.

[00:56:40] And so the substitution logic here exists, but it's almost like there's two lanes of provision where God is providing the promised line, and he is providing the burnt offering.

[00:56:55] And those two things are not the same. An animal is not the promised line, okay? So an animal cannot be the same kind of thing that the promised line is. It just can't be. It's a different frame. The frame of the promised line is with Isaac. God doesn't want Isaac or the promised son to be sacrificed as a burnt offering. That would be a pagan notion, and it would go against God's character in every other place in Scripture.

[00:57:33] God is revealing to Abraham in a very visceral and real way that he is not like the other gods.

[00:57:42] The burnt offering aspect comes into play after the fact of Abraham already stopping and obeying the Angel of the Lord.

[00:57:51] And a burnt offering is done out of gratitude and respect and relationship, just like it's done after the flood by Noah. Noah did not offer a burnt offering to appease God's wrath. He did it out of gratitude and thanksgiving to God for saving him.

[00:58:11] Another really big piece of this is that if this was the typology that we're supposed to notice of Isaac and the ram, and that is the substitute replacement logic, if that's what we're supposed to carry forward to the New Testament, none of the New Testament authors do that. What they do talk about is the context of Abraham being obedient, and especially the promise and idea of resurrection.

[00:58:42] Now granted, for Abraham and Isaac, that would probably be the same kind of resurrection we see with other people who are not Jesus. Not a resurrection to eternal life, but a return to life where Isaac would again still die like a normal person after he was resurrected. But thematically, it's still gonna call up the idea of the promised son being resurrected and that is the typology that we have used in the New Testament.

[00:59:13] And that is in Hebrews eleven, by the way. Let's go ahead and read this little passage starting in Hebrews eleven verse seventeen. Quote, " By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.' He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." End quote.

[00:59:48] So the way the New Testament author of Hebrews uses this text is to point toward the hope of the promise, the child, and resurrection. It is not pointing toward Isaac and the ram.

[01:00:01] Nonetheless, it is really important to see the theme of God's provision. But God can provide in many different ways, and two ways we see God providing in the book of Genesis with this story is providing the promised son and providing the offerings for sacrifice.

[01:00:21] And it doesn't mean those two things are the same thing.

[01:00:24] The substitute ram is not Abraham's clever solution. Abraham isn't negotiating a replacement. There is not a mechanism for satisfaction.

[01:00:34] There is a promised son under the threat of death. But God just tells Abraham to stop. From the text directly, Abraham offers the ram instead of Isaac. This isn't God's commandment. It doesn't necessarily have to be connected in the way that we often do.

[01:00:55] All right, so I'm going to go ahead and start wrapping up. But an important question that a lot of people raise is the idea of Isaac being laid on the altar. And doesn't that just by itself make him sacrificial?

[01:01:08] Well, there's another interesting point that Levitical scholars will bring up here as well. The fact that death does not occur on an altar. A couple of things here is that, first of all, this altar is not the same as covenantal sacred space. So we can't map things from the tabernacle directly onto this kind of an altar. Although it is very important to notice that animals are not killed on altars. And so it might even be worse that Abraham is going to kill Isaac when he's on the altar.

[01:01:43] There's obviously a lot more we could say but this is at least a really solid start to separate out what Genesis 22 says, what the New Testament authors say, and what that means for Christian theological reflection.

[01:01:59] Genesis 22 does give us some form of replacement, and the replacement is one that God provides and accepts. The ram is accepted instead of Isaac. But there are some really deep questions to ask about what that means. And again, just because Abraham chooses to offer the ram instead of Isaac doesn't mean that this is a one-to-one logic that God is trying to show. And in fact, I would say that God is demonstrating the opposite, that God does not want human sacrifice.

[01:02:37] This is actually a really backwards piece of logic, but it's hard to see. It's a lot easier to just say, "Well, of course, this is an obvious area of substitution. It is in relation to the promised Son, and therefore, we have at least substitutionary ideas."

[01:02:58] We do have substitutionary ideas. But I would separate out the idea that God wanted Isaac to be offered in the same way that He wants the offering of the ram. The offering of the ram has to fit in with the logic of what a burnt offering was even meant to do.

[01:03:17] We also don't have any kind of appeasement going on, any kind of turning away from God's wrath or anything like that. While we don't necessarily have to have those things because it can come from some other text, again, we have to see that it's gonna come from another text where God will in fact accept a replacement offering.

[01:03:41] So in other words, we still have some work to do in our exploration of substitution replacement passages. So I hope you guys are ready for more of that next week. We will look at where it is offered, rejected, interrupted, or just can't really happen.

[01:04:02] If anyone has any passages that I'm not addressing that you really think would be helpful, especially if you want to show this idea of replacement substitution logic in a way where God wants it and accepts it directly, I would really love to see what you have to bring me as far as those passages, because I'm trying my best to be fair and to not cherry-pick passages and to really look at this theme as cleanly and explicitly as we can. I'm not bringing forward every passage I have either, but I'm trying to not just cherry-pick ones that go for or against some idea.

[01:04:45] I'm interested in exegesis, in context, and in the thematic patterns and what those show us. If we don't see it thematically, if we don't see it directly in the text, and if we don't see a New Testament author alluding to it, then we really need to step back and ask if we're adding to the text.

[01:05:05] So that is all I have for this week. But let's keep thinking carefully about the text together and seeing what these patterns and themes can teach us. I believe it's important because this is the revelation of God to us. And we need to understand God through these patterns. And they're going to teach us things that maybe are sometimes surprising to us.

[01:05:29] But that's what we've got for this week. As always, I thank you guys for listening, and I thank you for sharing the episodes with others who might be interested. I hope you are enjoying this deep exploration into ideas and challenges that maybe are a little bit uncomfortable. But I welcome you into a little bit of that discomfort because in the end, it is not a challenge against God. It is something that we're doing in order to understand God better.

[01:05:59] Thank you for listening, and thank you for my financial supporters who support me through Patreon, PayPal, and my Biblical Theology community. I really deeply appreciate all of you and really love to explore ideas with you all. That is it for this week, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.