Is Jesus death substitutionary?

On various online platforms there have been debates about Penal Substitutionary Atonement. Debates about this account of what Jesus’ death achieves are nothing new. John Stott’s “The Cross of Christ” is still the book I’d recommend anyone wanting to see the different ways the Bible describes Jesus’ death for us.

In this blogpost, I want to focus simply on the question of whether Jesus’ death was substitutionary. The main alternative is to focus on Jesus’ death as representative. To understand what those two terms mean, we can turn to football. If a player is a substitute, he comes on to place in the place of another. So if player A is injured, he is brought off the field. Player B is brought on to the field, and now plays in place of player A. That is substitution- in place of another.

But now imagine player B, playing for the team you support, scores a goal. You cheer, and with your friends watching you yell, “We scored”. You weren’t on the pitch. You didn’t score. But your team represents all who support it, and when player B scores, he is your representative. What your representative does, all who are represented share in. When a head of state declares war, all the citizens of that state are at war.

So we can understand Jesus’ death as substitutionary: he dies in our place so that we don’t have to. Or we can understand Jesus’ death as representative: he dies and so all who belong to him have also died. Both have biblical basis, and I think it is fair to say that some evangelicals have neglected representative atonement. (e.g. 2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.)

But nonetheless, substitutionary atonement is both taught and a vital part of understanding the character of God and the problem we humans need rescuing from. We’ll look more at the character of God and the problem we need rescuing from in a future blogposts. Here, I’ll briefly show that substitution, Jesus dying in our place, is biblical.

Going back to Genesis is often helpful in understanding a Bible truth. Because of the way the Bible was written over time, ideas and events from Genesis form the background to later books of the Bible. Or to take the divine authorship seriously, God lays out plenty of Easter Eggs in Genesis to whet our appetite for what he will do later.

So in Genesis 22, we find Abraham going up a mountain with his son Isaac. God emphasises that Isaac is Abraham’s one and only son who he loves. This is odd in some ways, because Abraham also has Ishmael. But Isaac is the son of promise, the son who will carry forward God’s promise to bless the world. Abraham is told to go up the hill to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering to the Lord. Isaac is carrying the wood up the hill. (You should hear echoes of Golgotha, and the Son of God, the one only Son who the Father loves, carrying his cross.) But at the very moment when Isaac is about to be sacrificed, the angel of the Lord calls out for Abraham to stop. A ram caught in thorns is pointed out. The ram dies in place of the Isaac. Abraham calls the place “The Lord will provide”. At least sometimes, an animal is killed in place of a human, as a substitute. Hebrews tells us these animals were inadequate substitutes for a human being. But the principle that a sacrifice is a substitution, a sacrificial victim dying in place of a human, is being shown.

This pattern continues at the Passover in Exodus 12-13. In every house in Egypt, there will be death. Either the firstborn son of the household will die. Or a lamb will die, the blood painted on the doorposts causing the angel of death to “pass over”. When judgement is certain, a lamb may substitute for the firstborn son, and die in place of the firstborn son, so that the son lives. (Christ is our Passover lamb- all the Gospels emphasise Jesus death is happening at the time of the Passover festival, 1 Corinthians 5:7 says For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.)

With Isaac and the Passover in the background, many of the sacrifices in Leviticus also appear substitutionary. People lay hands on animals’ heads, sometimes confessing sins, and the animal dies while the people live and draw closer to the presence of God in the tabernacle.

As we come to Jesus himself, we see two further signs that his death is substitutionary, in place of his people. The first is the use of ransom and redemption language. In Mark 10:45, Jesus says “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus describes his death as a ransom- the price paid to set other people free. The New Testament letters more often speak of his death as redeeming. This has the same ransom idea of buying freedom for slaves or prisoners. But it also has strong Exodus echoes, since the Exodus rescue is described as God redeeming Israel. Like the Passover Lamb at the exodus, Jesus dies to set us free. It is not a ransom if the price fails to set us free. He dies paying the price in our place, a price we could not pay ourselves.

No one can redeem the life of another
    or give to God a ransom for them –
⁸ the ransom for a life is costly,
    no payment is ever enough –
⁹ so that they should live on for ever
    and not see decay. Psalm 49:7-8

But Jesus’ death is the ransom to enable people to live forever and not fear death (Hebrews 2:14-15). God ransoms us not with gold and silver, but with his own blood, his death in our place (1 Peter 1:18-19). Jesus describes his death as a ransom, and that implies he substitutes himself for us.

And then the narrative of the crucifixion shows that Jesus dies in the place of the guilty. Pilate offers two men to the crowd, one to be released and one to be crucified. The two men are Jesus Barabbas (son of the father) and Jesus of Nazareth, true son of the Father in heaven (Matthew 27:16-17). Jesus Barabbas is a well known prisoner, a terrorist. To take the words of the criminal on the cross (Luke 23:41), Jesus Barabbas would be getting what he deserved on the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was declared innocent by Pilate, and tells people to point our his sin if they can. But the criminal Jesus Barabbas goes free, while the innocent Jesus, Son of God the Father, suffers and dies.

I’ve deliberately not used some key passages on substitution as I am saving them to consider the penal aspect of atonement, how Jesus dies taking the penalty for our sins. But I hope I’ve shown that the concept of substitution is built into the early sacrifices in the Bible story, so that later talk of sacrifice and redemption includes substitution. And then the narrative of the cross includes an explicit substitution of the innocent Jesus dying in place of the guilty Jesus.

(I’m happy to have comments or questions as usual. Please be aware I plan to cover the penalty element of substitutionary atonement in a separate post.)