What took place when Jesus died? The Bible answers that question in more than one way because more than one thing happened at the cross. Theologians have grouped the Bible’s answers into different categories that go by different names, for example, Christus Victor, Recapitulation, and Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

The last of these—Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA)—receives the most attention in many evangelical traditions today. Briefly defined, PSA teaches that Jesus took the penalty (P) that sinners deserved and did so as their substitute (S), in this way making atonement (A) for them. In his classic, The Cross of Christ, John Stott fills out this definition:“Evangelical Christians believe that in and through Christ crucified God substituted himself [S] for us and bore our sins, dying in our place the death we deserved to die [S, P], in order that we might be restored to his favor and adopted into his family [A].”¹John Stott, The Cross of Christ,20th anniversary ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2006), 13. Moreover, PSA is often understood to be foreshadowed in Old Testament sacrifice, where an animal takes the penalty (P) that sinners deserved and does so as their substitute (S), in this way making atonement (A) for them.

Andrew Rillera strongly disagrees. In Lamb of the Free, he argues that PSA is a thoroughly unbiblical idea.²Andrew Rillera, Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death (Cascade, 2024).

1. Introduction to Lamb of the Free

Dr. Andrew Remington Rillera is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at The King’s University, which is a Christian university in Edmonton, Alberta. He completed his PhD at Duke University with a major in New Testament and minors in theology and early Judaism and describes himself as a Christian in the Anglican tradition.³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 2 n. 1.

Towards the end of the Introduction, he makes the book’s purpose crystal clear: “This study will demonstrate how, from a biblical-studies perspective, penal substitutionary atonement has problems with each one of its key terms—penal, substitutionary, and atonement.”⁴Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 6.

1.1. The Book’s Basic Argument

The book may be thought of in two halves: chapters 1–4 and 5–8. The first half focuses on the OT and its understanding of the sacrificial system. The goal is to “clear up common misunderstandings about OT sacrifice and the two forms of (im)purity (ritual vs. moral) in the process of providing an account of the meaning, logic, and limits of the various functions of Levitical sacrifices.”⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 6. Chapter 4 will also “discuss the so-called prophetic critique of sacrifice and the expectation of ‘restoration’ when utilizing cultic imagery, as well as the fact that forgiveness can and did occur apart from the atoning apparatus of cultic sacrifice.”⁶Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7. These chapters are foundational since the book’s second half will examine several NT passages that are commonly held to support a PSA understanding and argue: In light of the arguments of the first four chapters, a PSA understanding simply doesn’t work.

To that end, the book’s second half consists of four chapters focused on different aspects of NT teaching and how to understand it. “Chapter 5 explores Jesus’s relation to the sacrificial and purity systems in the Gospels” and argues that “the understanding of the Lord’s Supper in both the Gospels and 1 Corinthians derives exclusively from the nonatoning sacrifices” and that there are no “allusions to sacrificial atonement in the Lord’s Supper and the crucifixion accounts in the Gospels.”⁷Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7. In this review, any italics within quotes are those original to the book unless otherwise indicated.

Chapter 6 then considers how atonement theology is used in 1 John and Hebrews, though with a special focus on Hebrews, arguing that “Hebrews has a thick atonement theology, but it is not a substitutionary atonement theology. It is a participatory atonement, or solidarity atonement theology.”⁸Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7.

Chapter 7 looks at “several key NT texts that are commonly misunderstood to be about sacrifice and/or atonement” and argues “they are best comprehended within another conceptual framework.”⁹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7. The texts are: 1 Peter 2:24; Mark 10:45//Matthew 20:28; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Romans 3:25; 8:3.

Finally, chapter 8 examines the idea of “substitution,” arguing,

The NT authors … all agree on one fundamental point: Jesus’s death is a participatory phenomenon; it is something all are called to share in experientially. The logic is not: Jesus died so we don’t have to. Rather it is: Jesus died so that we, together, can follow in his steps and die with him and like him, having full fellowship with his sufferings so that we might share in the likeness of his resurrection….

In short, while Jesus did die for us, this does not mean that Jesus died instead of us. It means that he died ahead of and with us.¹⁰Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7.

By way of summary: once you understand OT sacrifice and atonement properly (chapters 1–4), this enables you to see that NT texts that speak of Jesus’s death are not thinking in terms of PSA but in terms of a participatory phenomenon that we are called to share in (chapters 5–8).

Since the review that follows focuses on areas where I disagree with the author, I want to say up front the area that I found most helpful in reading this book, namely, its emphasis on our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. The rich blessings of that union should be regularly highlighted, and I’m grateful the book has done so. For me, it made union with Christ even more beautiful.

1.2. The Book’s Concern

In the Introduction, Rillera explains what he believes is at stake in this discussion: PSA is based on a wrong understanding of justice, and this wrong understanding has negative impacts on society.¹¹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 2–3.

The wrong understanding he has in view is known as negative retributive justice. In the book’s Foreword, written by Douglas Campbell, Rillera’s doctoral supervisor, Campbell describes negative retributive justice as a system that focuses on making the guilty party “pay” for their wrong by experiencing harm equivalent to the wrong.¹²Rillera, Lamb of the Free, xiv.

By this definition, PSA is negative retributive justice—with the added element of substitution—because the sacrificial animal (or Jesus) is experiencing the harm the sinner deserves.¹³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 3. To return to Rillera’s Introduction: “A sacrifice, so it is thought, is bringing justice by punishing some other blood-filled mammal as a substitutionary death, construed as the just punishment for the sinner.”¹⁴Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 3. The book clearly holds this understanding of justice to be wrong, speaking later of “warped notions of justice based on penal substitutionary atonement.”¹⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 8. And while the book will later pick up on problems it sees with the substitutionary nature of PSA, it seems to focus here on the idea of negative retributive justice in particular.¹⁶Rillera thus introduces the quote above from p. 3 by saying, “For some, justice is retributive and has to do with punishment.” See also the remarks of Campbell on pp. xviii–xix.

By way of response, it is important to note that negative retributive justice as defined in the book is clearly commanded and commended by the Lord himself. He thus weaves the capital penalty—which is a clear example of negative retributive justice—throughout Israel’s legal code (Exod 21:12–17; Lev 20:9–16; Deut 13:5–10; etc.) and also commands it to be carried out in the midst of narratives (Lev 24:10–23). Indeed, when a priest executes two people committing serious sin (Num 25:6–9), the Lord describes it as an act of atonement (Hebrew kipper)¹⁷This review article transliterates Hebrew and Greek terms, following Rillera’s practice. and rewards the priest with an everlasting priesthood (25:13). That’s noteworthy: a priest making atonement by means of negative retributive justice with God’s full approval and even commendation.

This is not to say that negative retributive justice is the Bible’s only approach to justice,¹⁸In looking at Deuteronomy 19:18–20 and 25:1–3, Christopher Wright identifies at least five different goals: retribution, purging, deterrence, restoration, compensation. See Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (InterVarsity Press, 2004), 310. nor is it to deny that negative retributive justice can be abused. But the Lord’s commanding and commending of negative retributive justice in these texts remains a very stubborn fact. He simply does not view it as problematic.

2. Examining the Book’s Claims

The above still does not prove, however, that PSA is true, and the book presents multiple arguments for why it is not. I interact with most of them in a longer review (around 55,000 words) I have posted online.¹⁹Jay Sklar, “Lamb of the Free: An Extended Review,” Academia, https://www.academia.edu/164963413/Lamb_of_the_Free_An_Extended_Review. In this review, I will consider seven important claims the book makes to support its overarching thesis that PSA is not a biblical concept. For each of them, I begin by identifying what the claim is, how it relates to the book’s overall thesis, and the problem(s) that I see in the argument. In most cases, I will consider how the analysis relates to a specific biblical passage and to the doctrine of PSA.

2.1. Claim 1: Sacrifice in the OT Is Not About Death

The goal of the first chapter is to provide arguments that “prove that there is no such thing as a ‘substitutionary death’ sacrifice in the Torah.”²⁰Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 10. One of the main arguments put forward is that sacrifice in the OT is not about death:

Leviticus gives its readers an ingenious way to reconceptualize the death of the sacrificial animals so that it is no longer conceived of as a “death.” It is difficult to capture the ritual reconfiguration happening, but in short, they conceptualized the death of the sacrificial animal as “not-a-killing.”²¹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 17.

If true, this would not only mean that OT sacrifice is not about the animal dying in the place of the offerer but also that it was not a picture of what Jesus came to do by means of his death on the cross, e.g., “The NT authors express the saving significance of Jesus in a variety of ways, but when it comes to Jesus’s death as death, they do not use sacrificial imagery since, as we learned, sacrifice is not about the concept of death.”²²Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 165–66; see also 215, 229.

To support its claim that the animal’s death is reconceptualized as “not-a-killing”—which the book grants “at first seems paradoxical and counterintuitive”²³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 17.—the book provides various arguments, of which I will interact here with two.²⁴Fuller interactions can be found in my longer review cited above in n. 19.

To begin, Rillera notes that Leviticus 17:3–4 uses the language of “bloodshed” to describe the slaughtering of a sacrificial animal at any place except at the tent of meeting, from which he concludes, “According to Leviticus, killing a domesticated animal is morally equivalent to murdering a human being.”²⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 19. He then goes on to note, “There is only one circumstance in which killing a domesticated animal is not considered murder and that is when it is offered as a sacrifice at the right place and its blood is deposited in the right manner somewhere on the outer altar (17:5–6, 8–9, 11).”²⁶Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 19. So, unauthorized killing counts as murder but authorized killing does not.

In summarizing the significance of these points, Rillera states: “This necessarily means that the death of a sacrificial animal is conceptualized in Leviticus as something other than killing or being put to death.”²⁷Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 22.

As a series of numbered points, the argument is:

1. Unauthorized animal killing is viewed as murder.
2. Authorized animal killing is not viewed as murder.
3. Therefore, authorized animal killing is reconceptualized as something other than killing or death.

As can be seen, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Note the change that takes place from the first two phrases (“murder”) to the last phrase (“killing or death”). This change undermines the argument for the simple reason that “murder” is not a synonym for “killing” or “death.” By way of example, consider the following similar argument:

1. Unauthorized human killing is viewed as murder.
2. Authorized human killing (e.g., the capital penalty for idolatry in the OT) is not viewed as murder.
3. Therefore, authorized human killing is reconceptualized as something other than killing or death.

The conclusion is clearly untrue as can be seen by the emphasis on killing and death in passages that require the capital penalty for idolatry (e.g., Deut 17:2–7).

If the conclusion to either of these arguments used the word “murder” in place of “killing or death,” they would work perfectly. But because the conclusion shifts from one concept (murder) to another (killing, death), the conclusion does not follow from the premises and the arguments fail.²⁸In other words, these arguments are guilty of equivocation (inaccurate use of language). A similar equivocation in the language of “murder” and “killing” happens in the argument that goes from the bottom of p. 19 to the top of p. 20 and in the argument on pp. 22–24. See also the last paragraph on p. 21, where “killing” is used for unauthorized slaughter as though it were a synonym for “murder.”

The second argument in support of understanding that Leviticus is reconceptualizing sacrificial death as something other than a killingof a blood-bearing creature “is the fact that the death of the animal—the slaughter itself—is given no ritual or theological meaning by any biblical text.”²⁹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 20. This claim is supported by noting various ways in which sacrificial texts seem not to emphasize the slaughter of the animal but emphasize instead acts associated with the altar and performed by the priest, like the burning of the sacrificial meat and the presenting of the blood.³⁰Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 20–21. From these observations it is concluded—quoting Eberhart—“that the slaughter of animals is rather insignificant.”³¹Christian Eberhart, “Characteristics of Sacrificial Metaphors in Hebrews,” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods—New Insights, ed. Gabriella Gelardini, BibInt 75 (Brill, 2005), 44; quoted in Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 21.

In response, a quick reading of the key sacrificial texts in Leviticus 1–7 shows an interesting pattern: they regularly specify that the animal’s slaughter must be done “before the Lord” or “at the entrance of the tent of meeting/before the tent of meeting” where he dwells (Lev 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:4, 15, 24; 6:25; see further Exod 29:11; Lev 14:13). At the least, such phrases make clear that this action is being carried out in the Lord’s presence. But more particularly, the phrase “before the Lord,” when used together with a ritual action in tabernacle texts, often indicates that the action is being done unto the Lord and especially that something is being presented to him. Far from being insignificant, such actions are essential expressions of ritual worship.

For example: “You shall put all these [breads] on the palms of Aaron and on the palms of his sons, and wave them for a wave offering before the Lord” (Exod 29:24) as a way of dedicating them unto him; “Then you shall take [these breads] from their hands and burn them on the altar on top of the burnt offering, as a pleasing aroma before the Lord” (Exod 29:25), unto whom you are offering them (as the rest of the verse makes clear: “It is a food offering to the Lord”); “When Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a regular incense offering before the Lord,” and thus offer it unto him (Exod 30:8); “And [Moses] arranged the bread on [the golden table] before the Lord” (Exod 40:23), unto whom it was being presented.

As applied to the ritual act of slaughtering, to slaughter an animal before the Lord is to slaughter it unto him, meaning the act of killing itself was seen as a way to make clear the animal is being presented to the Lord as an expression of worship.³²But it is not the whole part of presenting it to him. The sacrificial texts make clear that the atonement is not complete until the priest presents the body and blood on the altar, which some expressions of PSA miss. But atonement is also not less than the act of slaughter, which the book misses. The best articulations of PSA will thus say something like, “In place of the sinner’s life, given in death, the Lord will accept this animal’s life, given in death through its slaughter before him, its lifeblood being placed on his altar, and its meat being burned up in smoke to him.” To put it differently, the animal was being killed unto the Lord, meaning the death itself is being ritually highlighted; the killing of the animal was not an insignificant part of the ritual but an essential expression of giving this sacrifice to the Lord.

This understanding of ritual slaughter is not only in keeping with the other ritual actions done before the Lord mentioned above but also appears to be supported by Leviticus 17, which shows that animals slaughtered somewhere other than before the Lord do not count as an offering to him, resulting instead in bloodguilt for the offerer (17:3–4).³³Scholars debate whether these verses prohibit all slaughter away from the tabernacle or only slaughter for sacrifice away from the tabernacle (in which case one could slaughter an animal if the goal was simply a meal; for details, see overview in Jay Sklar, Additional Notes on Leviticus [Gleanings Press, 2023], 104–6). In either view, however, the only sacrifices that count as being offered to the Lord are those slaughtered at the tabernacle. In other words, there’s no option for slaughtering at one place and offering it to the Lord at another.³⁴In some translations, Leviticus 17:3–4a could read as though offerers are not forbidden from slaughtering a sacrifice outside the camp, only from slaughtering it and not bringing it to the tabernacle. But the Hebrew points in a different direction; it can be woodenly translated: “Anyone from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a sheep or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters [one of these] outside the camp, but to the entrance of the tent of meeting has not brought it to present [as] an offering to the Lord before the dwelling of the Lord…” If the text read that the offerer “does not bring it” to the tent, this could mean either that the offerer “does not bring it to the tent before offering it” or “does not bring it to the tent even after offering it somewhere else,” with option two allowing for sacrificial slaughter elsewhere. But as noted by Milgrom, the use of the Hebrew past tense here—“has not brought it”—implies antecedent action, that is, “that a sacrificial animal is not to be slaughtered unless it ‘has been brought’ to the Tent to be slaughtered there” (Sklar, Additional Notes on Leviticus, 106). See further Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (Doubleday, 2000), 1455. (Note that this understanding also helps with v. 9, which does say “does not bring it,” leading to the possible ambiguity named above; v. 4 resolves the ambiguity, making clear the text is referring to bringing it to the tent to offer it. Such an understanding also makes the most sense of the regular emphasis to this point in Leviticus on the necessity of slaughtering the animal before the Lord: 1:5, 11; 4:4, 15, 24.) In order to present the animal to the Lord, you cannot simply apply its blood to the tabernacle altar before the Lord and burn its meat there; the animal must also be killed before him, again highlighting how the death of the animal before the Lord is essential to presenting it to him.

One may still ask how this important ritual element relates to atonement (for which, see further below on Lev 17:11), but these observations hopefully make clear that far from seeing the animal’s death as insignificant, these ritual texts highlight its importance, connecting the animal’s death itself to the presentation of the animal to the Lord.

In light of the above critiques and arguments, I do not think the book has sustained its claim that sacrifice in the OT is not about death. As a result, when we come to NT texts, we should not be surprised to find that the death of Jesus is presented as a sacrificial death and that his death is significant in the sacrificial process. (I will turn to some of these texts in the remaining sections.)

2.2. Claim 2: Sacrificial Atonement (Kipper) Is Only About Cleansing Holy Items

To put this argument in perspective, it is helpful to note that in Israel’s thought world, certain ritual impurities and certain sins were viewed as defiling not only the person who had the impurity or who had committed the sin but also the tabernacle itself—almost as though the impurities and sins were a mist that the person generated and that landed on the Lord’s home. One of the roles of the purification offering—traditionally translated as sin offering—was to remove the impurity or sin from the tabernacle (see Lev 16:14–19).

The overall argument of chapter 4 is that what has just been described is the only thing that takes place in atoning sacrifice, that is, “that ‘atonement’ (kipper) has a relatively limited function: it only removes contamination from sancta (holy objects within the dwelling place) and only contamination caused by two sources, certain (ritual) impurities and certain (but not all) sins.”³⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 88. Note that this claim already does not account for the atoning function of the burnt offering or reparation offering (traditionally translated guilt offering). The book’s downplaying of atonement with the burnt offering is especially problematic in light of texts like Leviticus 1:4; 5:10; 9:7; 12:7–8; 14:20; 16:24. See my longer review (cited above, n. 19) for further analysis. So, in atoning sacrifices, kipper means to cleanse/decontaminate, the only things that are decontaminated by the sacrifice are holy objects at the tabernacle, and these are cleansed of certain ritual impurities and certain sins. As applied to NT texts later in the book, it will be argued that texts that appear to connect Jesus’s sacrificial blood with atoning sacrifice for the cleansing or forgiveness of the sinner—such as 1 John 1:7 (see discussion below)—must therefore be understood differently.

The above argument runs into various challenges. I will highlight one here and one in the next section.

The first challenge is that towards the end of the instructions for the Day of Atonement, we read these words:

And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. (Lev 16:29–30)

Atonement here clearly leads to the cleansing of sinners themselves from their moral impurity, which goes against the book’s thesis. The book counters by arguing that moral impurity is removed from sinners here by rites other than sacrifice, namely, the fasting and Sabbath observance mentioned in 16:29.³⁶Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 138–40. But in that case, we would expect 16:30 to read, “for it is on this day that you shall make atonement for yourselves.” Instead, we read, “atonement shall be made for you,”³⁷More woodenly, “he will make atonement for you,” though third masculine singulars can have a passive sense in Hebrew, the approach taken by modern translations here (NASV, NIV, ESV, NRSV, NJPS, etc.). See further Jay Sklar, Leviticus: A Discourse Analysis of the Hebrew Bible, ZECOT (Zondervan Academic, 2023), 438. naturally implying a third party makes atonement on their behalf that day.

Leviticus 16 leaves little doubt who that would be: the high priest. Leading up to our passage, the verb “to atone” (kipper) occurs ten different times to describe the actions on that day of the current high priest, Aaron.³⁸Leviticus 16L6, 10, 11, 16, 17 (2x), 18, 20, 24, 27. For v. 10, cf. vv. 20–22a and comments in Sklar, Leviticus (ZECOT), 430. Following our passage, the verb “to atone” occurs four different times to describe the actions of the future high priest on that day.³⁹Leviticus 16:32, 33 (3x). It also occurs once in v. 34 as a summary statement of what happens on the Day of Atonement. The most natural conclusion is that the third party in verse 30 who makes atonement for the Israelites on the Day of Atonement is the high priest.

So how do our verses function? On the one hand, they make clear that the people’s fasting and sabbath observance are necessary. The Lord is not interested in mere ritual performed on the people’s behalf but in their own hearts being turned to him in repentance and faith. On the other hand, being cleansed of their sin happens because “atonement is made for” them by the high priest.⁴⁰Compare Hebrews 9:11–13, which works with this same conclusion.

In keeping with this, it is therefore no surprise that 1 John 1:7 uses the Day of Atonement to explain the cleansing of sin that believers experience through Jesus’s sacrificial death. The passage reads: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The phrase “cleanses us from all sin” uses the same language found in the Septuagint’s translation of Leviticus 16:30 to describe the Israelites being “cleansed from all your sin,” thus connecting Jesus’s blood to the atoning sacrifices of the Day of Atonement.

The book acknowledges that the language of 1 John 1:7 is “a clear parallel” to the Septuagint’s translation of Leviticus 16:30,⁴¹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 215. but it then goes through a lengthy explanation for why this cannot mean Jesus was an atoning sacrifice,⁴²Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 215–18. based in part on its view that the Day of Atonement sacrifices do not cleanse people. Its final conclusion is that Jesus’s blood is being conceptualized as water and that “the claim of 1 John 1:7 is conveying something like this: ‘The blood of Jesus purifies us of all sin because just as waterwashing purifies, then much more will the blood of Jesus—the purest ‘water’—wash us and purify us of all unrighteousness in baptism since baptism is what unites us to Jesus’s death.’”⁴³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 218.

In other words, though 1 John 1:7 invokes the Day of Atonement and speaks of cleansing blood, it is not invoking the idea of sacrificial kipper;⁴⁴See especially Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 219–20. it is invoking the blood as a symbol of water, which in turn invokes the idea of baptism and our union to Jesus in his death. But since, as I argue above, the Day of Atonement sacrifices did indeed cleanse the offerer, a far simpler solution presents itself to account for the data, both of this verse and the surrounding context:

• In 1 John 1:7, by describing Jesus’s blood as that which “cleanses us from all sin,” John alludes to the Day of Atonement (which the book agrees is “a clear parallel”⁴⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 215.), where the priest makes atonement by means of the sacrificial rites “to cleanse you from all your sins” (Lev 16:30). A sacrificial register is thus activated and used to describe what Jesus does to cleanse us.
• In 1 John 1:9, Jesus’s cleansing activity is repeated— “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”—and thus underscores this sacrificial work.
• In 1 John 2:2, which is just three verses later in the Greek and carries on the same flow of thought, Jesus is quite naturally described as a hilasmos—an atoning sacrifice—further deepening the sacrificial register. As Shauf observes, “Since 2:2 occurs as a part of the same discussion of sin as 1:7, we should see 2:2 as reflecting the claim about Jesus’ sacrificial death in 1:7.”⁴⁶Scott Shauf, Jesus the Sacrifice: A Historical and Theological Study (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), 154.

In short, these verses are all of one piece, referring to Jesus as an atoning sacrifice whose sacrificial blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7, 9; 2:2; cf. 4:10). And while 1 John 1:7–2:2 does not speak directly to the question of penalty or substitution, it does connect the A of PSA to Jesus’s sacrificial blood.

2.3. Claim 3: Sacrificial Atonement (Kipper) Is Only Related to Cleansing

Along with arguing that sacrificial atonement (kipper) only cleanses holy objects, the book argues that it refers only to cleansing and not to ransom. This would further undermine PSA insofar as the idea of ransom supports the idea that the sacrifice takes the penalty of the sinner to rescue them from the penalty of sin.

Leviticus 17:11 is key to consider here since it is one of the only verses that gives an explicit rationale of how sacrificial atonement works: “For the life of the body is in the blood, and I myself have given it to you on the altar to make atonement (kipper) for your lives, for it is the blood that makes atonement (kipper) by means of the life” (my translation).

Commenting on this verse,⁴⁷Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 122–27. Rillera notes that scholars debate whether the Hebrew word kipper—typically translated “to make atonement”—refers here to “ransom” or “decontaminate” or some combination of the two.⁴⁸Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 122. He argues for “decontaminate,” whereas “some combination of the two” appears to me to account best for the data. We begin with the idea of ransom.

I have defined ransom (Heb. kopher) elsewhere as follows:

A [kopher] is a legally or ethically legitimate payment that delivers a guilty party from a just punishment that is the right of the offended party to execute or to have executed. The acceptance of this payment is entirely dependent upon the choice of the offended party, is a lesser punishment than was originally expected, and its acceptance serves both to rescue the life of the guilty and to appease the offended party, thus restoring peace to the relationship.⁴⁹Jay Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement: The Priestly Conceptions (Sheffield Phoenix, 2005), 60 (see 48–61 for full study). Cf. more simply Feder: “From its usage in different contexts, we can determine that kōper designates a payment that removes the danger of death or some serious harm from the one who pays it, or on whose behalf it is paid” (Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual, WAWSup [Brill, 2012], 171).

Scholars from a wide array of backgrounds understand kipper in Leviticus 17:11 to refer to ransom because the exact phrase “to kipper for your lives” found in this verse occurs in only two other places (Exod 30:15; Num 31:50), both of which use kipper to refer to “ransom.”⁵⁰Baruch Levine, Leviticus, JPS Torah (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989), 115; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (Doubleday, 1991), 707–8; Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1474; Baruch Schwartz, “The Prohibitions Concerning the ‘Eating’ of Blood in Leviticus 17,” in Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, ed. Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan (JSOT Press, 1991), 55 n. 1; Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, NICOT (Eerdmans, 1979), 115; Philip J. Budd, Leviticus, New Century (Eerdmans, 1996), 248;Feder, Blood Expiation, 171; David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, NovTSup 141(Brill, 2013), 263–64;R. B. Jamieson, Jesus’ Death and Heavenly Offering in Hebrews, SNTSMS 172 (Cambridge University Press, 2019),137–38; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus, FAT 2/25 (Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 420; Nihan further cites: Herbert C. Brichto, “On Slaughter and Sacrifice, Blood and Atonement,” HUCA 47 (1976): 27–38; Nobuyoshi Kiuchi, The Purification Offering in the Priestly Literature: Its Meaning and Function (JSOT Press, 1987), 107; Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement, 168.

In response, Rillera cites Feldman, who argues:

The context of Exod 30 and Num 31 is markedly different than Lev 17:11. In both Exod 30 and Num 31, the context is monetary…. Lev 17:11 lacks the monetary context, and there is nowhere else in the Priestly Narrative where this monetary concept is imported into a sacrificial context.⁵¹Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 188; quoted in Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 122.

In other words, if the monetary concept is not there, ransom cannot be in view.

What this misses is that in the biblical world, a “ransom” was not limited to money. A ransom could be the giving of one living being in place of another. For example, Isaiah 43:3–4 reads, “For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom (kopher), Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Since you are precious in my sight, since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.” So, the question is not, “Is this a monetary context?” but “Is this a ransom context?”

To answer that question, it may be noted that the sins and major impurities requiring sacrificial atonement share an important similarity: they both endanger.⁵²What follows is a very brief summary of a much longer study. See Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement. The main argument has been summarized in Jay Sklar, “Sin and Impurity: Atoned or Purified? Yes!,” in Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible, ed. Baruch J. Schwartz, David P. Wright, Jeffrey Stackert, and Naphtali S. Meshel, LHBOTS 374 (T&T Clark, 2008), 18–31, and even more briefly in Sklar, Leviticus (ZECOT), 28–32, and in Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of the Resurrection, 259–65. In what follows, I go further and consider how its conclusions can be applied to the idea of PSA. Sin obviously endangers since sinners were liable to God’s punishment and needed ransom. But major impurities also endangered and required ransom since they pollute not only people but also holy items (Lev 16:16), which resulted in death if not dealt with properly (Lev 15:31). In either case—sin or impurity—the offerer was endangered, meaning we have a context where ransom is required.

Kipper in Leviticus 17:11 is therefore well understood as relating to ransom in sacrificial contexts since this accounts well for the data. It is in keeping with the use of the phrase elsewhere and in keeping with the situations envisioned for those bringing sacrifice for major impurities and inadvertent sins: their lives are endangered and are ransomed by the life of the sacrifice. Instead of the offerer’s lifeblood being given in death, the animal’s lifeblood is given in death, serving as the ransom payment. As I have noted elsewhere:

The question, “How can the offerer ransom their life [nephesh]?” is answered: “By the life [nephesh] of an animal, represented by its lifeblood, graciously accepted by the Lord as a ransom in place of the offerer’s own lifeblood.” Levine, citing the acclaimed medieval rabbinic scholar Rashi, expresses it as follows:

Rashi states: “Blood represents life, and it can therefore expiate for life.” Basic to the theory of sacrifice in ancient Israel … was the notion of substitution. The sacrifice substituted for an individual human life or for the lives of the members of the community in situations where God could have exacted the life of the offender….

This explains the specific intent of the Hebrew formula le-khapper ‘al nafshoteikhem, “for making expiation for your lives.” Literally, this formula means “to serve as kofer (ransom) for your lives.” God accepts the blood of the sacrifices in lieu of human blood.

And he does so as an act of grace: “I myself have given it to you on the altar to ransom your lives.” He both forgives sin and provides the means of forgiveness.⁵³Sklar, Leviticus (ZECOT), 459; citing Levine, Leviticus, 115.

In short, all the elements of PSA are in place: the animal experiences the death the offerer deserved (their penalty) in the offerer’s place (as a substitute) in order to reconcile them to God (atonement).

What about the cleansing aspect? This is where a second similarity exists between the sins and major impurities requiring sacrifice: they both defile. Major impurities obviously defile since the offerer needed cleansing, but sins also defile the sinner and needed cleansing: “For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins” (Lev 16:30).

In short, sins and major impurities both endanger (requiring ransom) and pollute (requiring cleansing). It’s a two-pronged problem requiring a two-pronged solution: ransom and cleansing. Sacrifice can achieve both because the blood is a dual-function solution: it is both the ultimate ransoming agent (Lev 17:11) and the ultimate cleansing agent (8:15). When sin is the focus, the ransoming function comes to the fore, and the offerer is “forgiven” (4:20, 26, 31). When impurity is the focus, the cleansing function comes to the fore, and the offerer is made “clean” (12:7; 14:20). But both ransom and cleansing are happening in each context because the blood accomplishes both.

In other words, in the context of atoning sacrifices, kipper refers to a “purifying ransom” and a “ransoming purification.”⁵⁴See Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement, 182; for further argumentation, see references in n. 52. And because of this ransoming element, PSA is at the heart of sacrificial atonement.

2.4. Claim 4: The Day of Atonement Passage in Leviticus 16 Cannot Be the Background of NT Passages That Explain What Happens in Jesus’s Death

Romans 3:25–26 is often understood to explain Jesus’s death against the backdrop of the Day of Atonement. These verses continue the flow from verse 24—which has just been referring to Jesus—and read as follows:

whom God put forward as a hilastērion by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

While there is more than one question when it comes to the best way to translate these verses, one of the key questions centers around the word hilastērion in 3:25. The debate is whether Paul uses this term with the Day of Atonement in mind—in which case it has a cultic/sacrificial referent and should be translated something like propitiation (ESV), expiation (RSV), sacrifice of atonement (NIV, NRSV), or mercy seat (NET)—or whether Paul uses the term with Roman culture in mind, and it should be translated something like “votive gift” or “votive offering.”

Many scholars lean towards the first category and increasingly understand that the term hilastērion refers specifically to the lid of the ark of the covenant.⁵⁵Daniel P. Bailey, “Jesus as the Mercy Seat: The Semantics and Theology of Paul’s Use of Hilasterion in Romans 3:25,” TynBul 51 (2000): 155–58; Frank Thielman, Romans, ZECNT (Zondervan Academic, 2018), 208, 210; Douglas Moo, Romans, 2nd ed., NICNT (Eerdmans, 2018), 252–55; Michael F. Bird, Romans, SOG (Zondervan, 2016), 117; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., BECNT (Baker Academic, 2018), 201–3; Simon J. Gathercole, “Justified by Faith, Justified by His Blood: The Evidence of Rom 3.21–4.25,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2 of The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Marl A. Seifrid, WUNT 2/181 (Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 178 n. 113. This is a common usage in the Septuagint (Exod 25:17–22; 31:7; Lev 16:2, 13–15), is its use in the only other NT passage using this term (Heb 9:5), and, occurring together here with the mention of blood in the context of dealing with sins, most naturally evokes a sacrificial register, and in particular, the Day of Atonement, where blood is sprinkled on the atonement lid in order to atone for impurity and sin (Lev 16:11–16).

As applied to Jesus, he is being described as the place where this atonement happens and where it happens by means of his own blood. The flow of thought is that God in his divine forbearance had passed over former sins but demonstrates his righteousness by dealing with them (and sins to come) in and through the sacrificial death of Jesus in place of sinners (P, S) so that they might be justified before him (A). Jesus takes the penalty the sinners deserved, and the justification of sinners is the result.⁵⁶Similarly Thielman, Romans, 198, 207–12, 220–21; Moo, Romans, 251–64;Schreiner, Romans,198–207; Bird, Romans,117–20; see esp. the very careful treatment in Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 168–81, esp. 175–81.

Rillera takes a very different approach, arguing against the above⁵⁷Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 260–61. and then providing a long discussion in which he argues that the term hilastērion should be understood in this passage to refer to a “votive gift”—not to God but from God to people.⁵⁸Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 262–71. In what follows, I engage with one of the book’s arguments against the above approach and then follow with a final comment evaluating the book’s own approach.⁵⁹See my longer review (cited in n. 19) for fuller engagement with other arguments the book puts forward.

One of the arguments the book has against the link to the Day of Atonement (which it refers to as the Day of Decontamination) is that the offering of that day was not for major moral impurities, and, since these have all been discussed in Romans 1–3, “the Day of Decontamination would be a deficient solution to the preceding context in Romans.”⁶⁰Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 261. In other words, if the Day of Atonement sacrifices could not atone for grave sins that defile the land such as bloodshed—and it seems clear those sacrifices do not do so fully, otherwise there would be no need for the inadvertent manslayer to stay in a city of refuge for more than one year even though a Day of Atonement would have taken place (Num 35:32–33)—then these sacrifices cannot serve as the backdrop for describing what Jesus accomplishes in his death.

There is an important problem here. The fact that sacrificial kipper cannot atone for the sins that defile the land might be true with regard to the sacrifices of Leviticus. But the book goes from here to conclude that sacrificial kipper cannot be involved at all for these sins in the NT. Stated propositionally:

1. Levitical kipper sacrifices cannot atone for sins that defile the land.
2. Therefore, sacrificial kipper cannot be the background of the forgiveness of these sins in the NT.

But the above only works if we grant a huge assumption:

1. Levitical kipper sacrifices cannot atone for sins that defile the land.
2. Jesus’s death could not be a sacrifice that is more powerful than the Levitical sacrifices.
3. Therefore, sacrificial kipper cannot be the background of the forgiveness of these sins in the NT.

That middle proposition is very problematic. As the “how much more” of Hebrews 9:14 makes clear, one of the most important points about the sacrificial work of Jesus is that it did what the Levitical sacrifices could not do.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Heb 9:13–14)

Indeed, Hebrews will go on to describe the Levitical sacrifices’ inability to deal fully and finally with sins and to contrast this with the sacrificial work of Jesus to deal both fully and finally with sins (Heb 10:11–14), so much so that we can do what no Israelite—aside from the high priest, and then only once a year—would dream to do: enter into the holy of holies (10:19–22). In other words, Jesus’s sacrifice was unspeakably more powerful than Levitical sacrifices. The above argument thus rests on a false assumption, and the most likely reading—especially in light of the terms hilastērion and blood occurring so closely together—is that we are in a sacrificial register and that the Day of Atonement in particular is being evoked.

Rillera summarizes his own understanding of this passage as follows:

By using hilastērion, Paul is primarily activating the conciliatory votive-gift motif in Greco-Roman culture, which itself evokes stories of reconciliation. But unlike the martyrs in 4 Maccabees who are offering themselves as votive gifts to God, Paul says God put forth Jesus as a conciliatory gift to humanity to demonstrate God’s merciful character of divine justice (dikaiosynē, Rom 3:25–26).⁶¹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 267.

In actuality, Paul does not say God put forth Jesus as a conciliatory gift to humanity. It’s clear that Jesus as hilastērion is for the benefit of humanity—it is the means of redemption (Rom 3:24)—but the whole context of Romans up to this point is that our sin endangers us before God, whose wrath comes against sinners (1:18), who brings judgment upon sinners (2:2), whose day of wrath and judgment is coming against unrepentant sinners (2:5), who will judge the world (3:6), and before whom all the world is accountable (3:19).⁶²See esp. Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 169–75. To say that sinners are the ones being conciliated does violence to the immediate context. Rather, the glory of what happens in Jesus is that God in his mercy provides for sinners the way of dealing with the judgment they deserve by providing Jesus as a hilastērion—the place of atonement—for God’s own righteous wrath that Paul has been detailing.

In short, the simplest explanation of why the words hilastērion and blood occur together is that they are meant to call to mind a sacrificial register in general and the Day of Atonement in particular. As such, they associate Jesus with the place where atonement happens and identify his blood as that which accomplishes it. Through his sacrificial death in place of sinners (S), he experiences the penalty for sins that sinners deserve (P). This demonstrates God’s justice in dealing with sins, past and present, and addresses God’s wrath due for sin, reconciling sinners to God (A). But even more, Jesus’s sacrificial death shows God’s love in providing this means of atonement to begin with. As Paul will say in just a few chapters, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

2.5. Claim 5: If Jesus’s Death Is a Participatory Phenomenon, It Cannot Be Substitutionary

In the Introduction, Rillera indicates that one of his major arguments is as follows:

The NT authors, whether they make use of sacrificial imagery, or whether they make use of the atoning sacrifices, all agree on one fundamental point: Jesus’s death is a participatory phenomenon; it is something all are called to share in experientially. The logic is not: Jesus died so we don’t have to. Rather it is: Jesus died so that we, together, can follow in his steps and die with him and like him, having full fellowship with his sufferings so that we might share in the likeness of his resurrection (e.g., Phil 3:10–11; Gal 2:20; 6:14; Rom 6:3–8; 1 Pet 2:21; Mark 8:34–35 with 10:38–29; 1 John 2:6; 3:16–18; etc.).⁶³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7.

As developed later in the book, the argument is that the NT describes Jesus’s death as something we share in (participatory) rather than something he does in place of us (substitutionary) and also that the fact of it being a participatory phenomenon means it cannot be a substitutionary phenomenon. Commenting on 1 Peter 2:24, Rillera argues:

It is obvious that Peter views Jesus as the Suffering Servant par excellence, but what prevents me from categorizing this as a “substitution” is that he simultaneously says we are called to share in the same servant lifestyle (2:21). Substitution, by definition, precludes any sort of participation, as Simon Gathercole argues in Defending Substitution. Gathercole writes: “I am defining substitutionary atonement for the present purposes as Christ’s death in our place, instead of us. The ‘instead of us’ clarifies the point that ‘in our place’ does not, in substitution at least, mean ‘in our place with us.’”⁶⁴Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 247. Here Rillera cites Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Baker Academic, 2015), 15.

A few comments by way of response. First, the above could read as though Gathercole agrees that it must be one or the other when it comes to Jesus’s death: substitution or participation. It’s therefore important to note that Gathercole sees these as different but co-existing ways to describe what is happening in Jesus’s death: “It should be emphasized, however, that the argument [I make in this book] … does nothing to undermine the importance of representation and participation. Rather, the point is that substitution can happily coexist with them.”⁶⁵Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 14; see also 30, 111–12.

Second, the Bible speaks in two ways when it comes to our participation in Jesus’s suffering and death. Sometimes it speaks of us following the example that Jesus left for us in his death, namely, obedience and self-sacrifice as righteous sufferers (Mark 8:34–35; 10:38–39; Heb 13:12–13; 1 Pet 2:18–21). This is something that happens on the physical plain as we live cruciform lives in this world. At other times, the Bible speaks of the union that we have with Christ in his death, which happens on the spiritual plain as we experience the spiritual benefits of all that Christ has done for us (Rom 6:3–11).⁶⁶It is important to note that these spiritual benefits impact us on the physical plain in the here and now, e.g., the power we have to defeat sin (Rom 6:6–11). The point is not that the latter category above is only spiritual, simply that the participation in Christ’s death in that category is not speaking to our physical suffering in the way that the first category is. The initial quote above mixes these together as though they were all the same thing,⁶⁷Note the conflation of verses from the two categories in the following: “Rather it is: Jesus died so that we, together, can follow in his steps and die with him and like him, having full fellowship with his sufferings so that we might share in the likeness of his resurrection (e.g., Phil 3:10–11; Gal 2:20; 6:14; Rom 6:3–8; 1 Pet 2:21; Mark 8:34–35 with 10:38–29; 1 John 2:6; 3:16–18; etc.)” (Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 7). The same happens again on pp. 274, 278. but it is important to address each of them separately.

With the first category—Jesus’s death as a model—Rillera assumes a false disjunction between Jesus’s death as substitution and Jesus’s death as model by failing to ask the important question: Substitution and model with reference to what? In his book, Six Hours, One Friday, Max Lucado recounts what happened to a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe, incarcerated at Auschwitz in 1941.⁶⁸Max Lucado, Six Hours, One Friday (Multnomah, 1989), 66–68. One day, a prisoner escaped. In order to discourage other prisoners from doing the same, for every one prisoner that escaped, the prison authorities would select ten prisoners to die. The tenth person selected in this case was a husband and father, who began to sob as he thought of leaving his wife and children behind. All of a sudden, Kolbe steps forward and asks to take the prisoner’s place—a request that is granted.

Now did Kolbe’s ensuing death serve as a substitute or as a model? Yes. With regard to penalty, a substitute: he died in place of the other prisoner. With regard to sacrificial love in unjust suffering, a model: by his death he modeled unbelievable self-sacrificial love, a model that others do well to participate in. My point is not to try and map every aspect of this story onto the cross but simply to show that a substitutionary death can at the same time be a model for others to follow.

With the second category—the spiritual union we have with Jesus in his death—two comments are important. The first is that it may legitimately be asked: Are the ideas of substitution and participation in fact exclusive of one another in this context? By emphasizing participation, Rillera’s own approach to atonement is closest to the recapitulation understanding of Christ’s work that Irenaeus outlined.⁶⁹Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 282. But others have argued that recapitulation and substitution—including PSA—are both biblical ideas that work together.

For example, Scot McKnight argues that many of the standard metaphors describing atonement—from recapitulation to ransom/Christus Victor to satisfaction to substitution to representation to penal substitution—are all biblical and all grounded in the idea of “identification for incorporation.”⁷⁰Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), 107–14. In a similar vein, Joshua McNall identifies “a particular account of recapitulation” that serves as “the ground and the foundation for the other models of atonement,” including PSA.⁷¹Joshua M. McNall, The Mosaic of Atonement: An Integrated Approach to Christ’s Work (Zondervan Academic, 2019), 23; see further his discussion on pp. 101–3. Others arguing for the compatibility of substitution and participation, with varying approaches, could also be cited.⁷²See further the discussion in Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 111–13, for various understandings of how substitution and participation might (or might not) relate to one another. What they share in common is that they see these ideas to be biblical and also to be compatible with one another.

Of course, the question remains whether they’re right to argue for this compatibility and, if so, whether they’ve described it in the best way, but I note them here to highlight that respected scholars—even those affirming a recapitulation type framework (so McKnight and McNall)—do not see ideas of substitution and participation to be at odds. Rillera undoubtedly disagrees, though he does not interact directly with such scholars in this work to explain why. (One cannot interact with all the literature on such matters, but a lack of interaction on such a crucial point of the book’s argument weakens its overall thesis.)

The second comment is to note that the book’s approach rests on an important but problematic assumption: if Paul speaks of believers participating in Jesus’s death in some contexts, and if participation excludes the idea of substitution by definition, then he cannot speak of Jesus’s death in substitutionary ways elsewhere because he cannot use different ideas that exclude one another when describing spiritual realities.

This assumption does not hold. For example, when describing the believer’s experience of salvation, Paul sometimes uses adoption imagery (Gal 4:5) and at other times the imagery of the dead being brought back to life (Col 2:13). These images exclude one another by definition: one centers on a living person being adopted, the other on a corpse being made alive. Why does Paul do this? Because there is a richness in our salvation that is best communicated by using multiple images, even if they are in logical tension with one another.⁷³Nor will it work to try and combine the images by saying, “Well, first he makes us alive and then he adopts us.” In the above passages, these images are each meant to describe salvation itself. They are two different ways of looking at the same spiritual reality. And if Paul is happy to do this when describing salvation, he can surely do likewise when describing the events that bring our salvation to pass. And that in turn means that arguing against substitution because it excludes the idea of participation is an argument without basis.

In short, whether participation and substitution are not exclusive to one another or whether Paul is following his practice elsewhere and using images that are exclusive to one another to describe spiritual realities, in either case, the assumption that he cannot be describing Christ’s death as substitutionary and participatory is false.

The above has important implications for a text like Romans 5:6–8:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Simon Gathercole has argued that Romans 5:7 is in keeping with classical examples from the literature of the time in which one person dies in place of another.⁷⁴Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 85–107, esp. 90–107. Rillera acknowledges this to be correct—“Granting that Rom 5:7 indeed alludes to classical examples of vicarious deaths…”⁷⁵Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 280.—but proceeds to state that this understanding does not also apply to the very next verse (5:8) in light of the larger context of Romans 5–8, which speaks of the ways that “Jesus’s death not only identifies with the current human condition of suffering in death as ‘the wages of sin’ (6:23; cf. 5:12–21), but it also makes possible for the beneficiaries a co-death (cocrucifixion and co-burial) with Jesus (6:2–11; cf. 7:4; 8:17).”⁷⁶Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 280. In other words, because Paul speaks of Jesus’s death in chapter 6 in terms of participation, he cannot be speaking of it in chapter 5 in terms of substitution because he cannot speak of Jesus’s death by using differing images that (the book holds) are in tension with one another.

But since (1) these images are not necessarily in tension with one another, and (2) even if they were, Paul elsewhere speaks of spiritual realities using images in tension with one another (and thus can do so here), then Gathercole’s reading is not only possible, it is the simplest explanation of the parallel between verses 7 and 8:

For one will scarcely die for (= in place of) a righteous person—though perhaps for (= in place of) a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for (= in place of) us.

Paul is clear: Jesus died in place of sinners. He is equally clear that this death reconciles sinners to God (5:10), meaning this is substitutionary atonement. Moreover, in the first half of Romans, “death as the consequence of sin is integral to Paul’s thought (1:32; 5:12ff.; 6:23; 7:5, 11),”⁷⁷Gathercole, “Justified by Faith,” 175. meaning that by suffering death in place of sinners, Jesus is suffering their penalty.

In short, we have PSA in its fullness: Jesus taking the penalty sinners deserve as their substitute, in this way reconciling them to God.

2.6. Claim 6: The Scapegoat on the Day of Atonement Only Functioned to Remove Contaminations from the Camp

Leviticus 16 describes the Day of Atonement ceremony. At one point in the ceremony, we read these words:

And when [Aaron] has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. (Lev 16:20–22)

It is obvious the goat here is not a sacrifice—it is not offered on an altar—and yet it is central to dealing with the Israelites’ sins on this day. Calling it the “tote-goat,” the book describes its function as follows:

It is basically a walking dustpan that carries off the rest of the contaminations from [Lev] 16:16 (that were not mentioned in 16:19) away from the sanctuary…. The function of the tote-goat is to preemptively ward off dire conditions that would threaten the community if these contaminants were not removed and then located far enough away from the sanctuary to no longer be a source of contaminating it.⁷⁸Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 129, 131.

If this is the case, the goat cannot be looked to as a picture of an animal suffering the penalty for others’ sins, again undermining a text that is often explained through the lens of PSA.

By way of response, the book’s argument cited above is true but incomplete. It’s true in that removing the Israelites’ sins was something the goat did. It’s incomplete in that the specific language used to describe how it removed those sins communicates that it was much more than a dustpan: it bore the responsibility and punishment of those sins. As I note elsewhere, this may be seen in at least two ways.

First, the Israelites’ sins are placed on the goat’s head (16:21), and to bear sin on one’s head means to be held responsible for it. “Judge between your servants, condemning the guilty and bringing down on their heads what they have done,” prays Solomon, asking the Lord to hold the guilty responsible for their wrongs (2 Chr 6:23).⁷⁹Cf. Joshua 2:19–20: “Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head.” See further Judges 9:57; 1 Samuel 25:39; 1 Kings 2:32–33, 44; Esther 9:25; Psalm 7:16; Joel 3:4, 7; Obadiah 1:15. As applied to our text, the … goat is not simply bearing the Israelites’ sins away, it is bearing full responsibility for them.

Second, the goat is said to “bear on itself all their iniquities to a land cut off.” The word “cut off ” [gezerah] occurs only here, though the verb of the same root (gazar) is used in many places with a negative connotation to describe a person being “cut off,” whether from worshiping at the temple (2 Chr 26:21), from life (Lam 3:54; Isa 53:8; cf. Ezek 37:11), or from the Lord himself (Ps 88:6[5]). In our context, the goat is not only bearing the peoples’ sins away from camp, it is bearing responsibility for them and thus is cut off from the Lord’s people and exiled—as happens to those laden with sin.⁸⁰Sklar, Leviticus (ZECOT), 434.

Most simply stated, in place of the people bearing the penalty, the goat does in their place [P, S]. And note especially how verse 10 describes this result: “to make atonement (kipper) with it [A] by sending it away … into the wilderness.”⁸¹My translation. More woodenly, “to make atonement on it,” the goat “being the place of focus for the atoning actions described in 16:21–22. The idea is conveyed more clearly in English using ‘with’ instead of ‘on’” (Sklar, Leviticus [ZECOT], 430 n. 45; so also NJPS). All the elements of PSA are present and accounted for.

As a final observation, it may be noted that Isaiah 53 picks up on these very verses to explain how the suffering servant bears the sins of others in his substitutionary suffering and death that reconciles people to God. (In the chart below, words in italics are the same in Hebrew or built on the same root.⁸²Sklar, Leviticus (ZECOT), 442.)

“Aaron must lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and all their transgres- sions, with regard to any of their sins.” (Lev 16:21)	“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.” (Isa 53:5a)
“So the goat will bear on itself all their iniquities to a land cut off.” (Lev 16:22)	“He was cut off from the land of the living…. He will bear their iniquities…. He bore the sin of many.” (Isa 53:8b, 11–12)

Insofar as NT authors use the suffering servant to explain the death of Jesus (see discussion below on Heb 9:28), a PSA understanding of his death in those NT passages would be in direct keeping with these earlier OT passages.

2.7. Claim 7: The NT Writers Did Not Read Isaiah 53 as Being about Atonement or Substitution

In chapter seven, the book argues that Isaiah 53 is not read in the NT as a model of atonement or of one person taking a penalty in the place of another.

If Isa 53 was received as such an obvious “atonement” prooftext, why didn’t the two NT authors who explicitly identify Jesus with kipper [i.e., the authors of Hebrews and 1 John] rely on Isa 53 for their proof, especially since making this link was an obvious uphill battle (cf. Heb 7:13–14)? The answer is that Isa 53 was not read by the early Christ-followers as either about atonement or substitution.⁸³Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 245.

In support, it notes NT passages that use Isaiah 53 in contexts that are not about Jesus’s death (Matt 8:16–17) or that use his death as a model of righteous suffering (1 Pet 2:21–22) and concludes, “All this confirms that Isa 53 was read as a paradigmatic script for what living righteously in an unrighteous world will entail (suffering, probably martyrdom, but ultimately vindication to resurrected life).”⁸⁴Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 246.

While the book is correct for some NT passages, its discussion of NT passages looking back to Isaiah 53 is incomplete. Gathercole notes that “Romans 4:25 is the most widely acknowledged parallel to Isaiah 53 [in Romans], with its reference to Jesus ‘who was handed over for our transgressions.’ This corresponds in particular to the fact that the servant ‘was handed over for their sins’ (Isa 53:12).”⁸⁵Gathercole, Substitution, 63–64. To this he adds Romans 8:32 (“He [God] handed him over for us all”), which has significant overlap with Isaiah 53:6b (“And the Lord has handed him over for our sins”). Neither of these passages are about Jesus as a paradigm; they are about Jesus as the one suffering for our sins.

But perhaps the most significant passage to note is Hebrews 9:28, which reads, “so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” As noted by David Moffit, a leading Hebrews scholar, the majority position among commentators is that the language of “bear the sins of many” in Hebrews 9:28 is alluding to the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:12, as the overlap in language makes clear.⁸⁶“The language of ‘bearing the sins of many’ used in Hebrews … occurs in LXX only in Isaiah 53:12 where the text says that the servant ‘bore the sins of many’” (David M. Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension [Baker Academic, 2022], 62). So also Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT (Eerdmans, 2012), 426–27; Thomas Schreiner, Hebrews, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Lexham, 2020), 287; Jamieson, Jesus’ Death, 170;andDouglas J. Moo, who notes in Hebrews,ZECNT (Zondervan Academic, 2024), 340 n. 121, that “most interpreters identify the allusion (e.g., Cullmann, Christology, 91; Lane, Hebrews, 2:250; Ellingsworth, Hebrews, 487)”) (Moffitt [Rethinking the Atonement, 62 n. 48] adds Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia [Fortress, 1989], 266).

Not interacting with this text in its discussion of the use of Isaiah 53 in the NT is a serious omission,⁸⁷The book’s discussion of Isaiah 53 makes no mention of Hebrews 9:28, stating, “The passages that quote from Isa 53 are: Matt 8:17, Luke 22:37, John 12:38, Acts 8:32–33; Rom 10:16, 15:21, 1 Pet 2:24–25; Rev 14:5” (Rillera, Lamb of the Free, 244 n. 5). The first six of these make clear they are citing from the OT; the last two do not, and verses like Hebrews 9:28 (as well as Romans 4:25 and 8:32) have as much (or more) overlap with verses from Isaiah 53 as do 1 Peter 2:24–25 and Revelation 14:5. For Hebrews 9:28 in particular, see the previous note. for Moffitt goes on to explain the significance of the servant in Isaiah 52–54 as follows: “the suffering and death of the servant in Isaiah 52:13–53:12 are part of the means by which the covenant curses are reversed and the relationship is restored to health. The servant’s vicarious death contributes to the turning of God’s anger to mercy (54:7–8).”⁸⁸Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement, 50. He also sees this idea reflected in 2:9, which states that Jesus “tastes death for everyone”: “Jesus’s vicarious death is identified in Hebrews 2:9 as the reason that he has been crowned with the glory and honor promised to humanity in Psalm 8. Conceptually, the ideas that Jesus ‘tastes death’ for all and is subsequently exalted, being ‘crowned with glory and honor,’ correspond well to the ideas of the servant’s vicarious death and exaltation in Isaiah 52:13–53:12” (p. 66). Again, in explaining the significance of 53:10: “the point seems to be that God planned to eliminate the guilt of the people that was placed upon the servant by having the servant take the guilt and die in the place of the guilty.”⁸⁹Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement, 53.

In short, by appealing to the servant of Isaiah 53 in Hebrews 9:28, the author of Hebrews is making clear that the same things are happening in and through the death of Jesus.⁹⁰See Moo, Hebrews,340; Cockerill, Hebrews, 426–27; Schreiner, Hebrews, 287; Jamieson, Jesus’ Death, 170. His death is penal [P] and substitutionary [S]⁹¹Moffitt uses the language “vicarious” in his book, which can mean “in place of another” (i.e., substitution) but can also mean “for the benefit of another.” His comments on 53:10 (cited above), however, make the substitutionary sense clear. In keeping with this, after publishing the book, he was interviewed on it and was asked how his view of the atonement related “to the presentation of atonement we seem to find in the apparently substitutionary (or representational) aspect of the suffering Servant in Isaiah 53?” He responded, “For what it’s worth, I think Isaiah 53 presents the death of the Servant figure as substitutionary (and penal)” (B. J. Oropeza, “Rethinking the Atonement: An Interview with David M. Moffitt,” Patheos, 25 January 2025, https://tinyurl.com/4xezrjhk). and functions as “the means by which the covenant curses are reversed and the relationship is restored to health [A].”⁹²To be sure, Moffitt sees this as an “extra-sacrificial means of dealing with sin” (Rethinking the Atonement, 71) since the servant in Isaiah 53 is not a sacrifice per se. But as Moffitt also notes, “The term [‘atonement’] can rightly be used outside of sacrificial contexts to refer to reconciliation within a relationship. The servant’s death in Isaiah 53 is atoning in this sense” (Rethinking the Atonement, 55) even if not in a sacrificial sense. If so, this would not be Penal Substitutionary Sacrificial Atonement, but it would be Penal Substitutionary Atonement nonetheless (though it may be noted that others see the sacrificial language of Hebrews 9:28 as indicating that the Servant’s work is still presented through a sacrificial lens, which seems persuasive to me, e.g., Jamieson, Jesus’ Death, 173–75).

As a final observation, it’s worth noting that by using the suffering servant to explain the death of Jesus, the author of Hebrews is following the example of Jesus himself and the earliest preaching in the church. In Luke 22:37, just before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 53:12 to explain what is about to happen: “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” In this way, he invites his followers to read his coming suffering and death through the lens of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, the one who dies in place of guilty sinners so that they may be forgiven. Similarly, in Acts, when Philip comes upon the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading Isaiah 53:7–8, we read, “And the eunuch said to Philip, ‘About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus” (8:34–35). Once more, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 who takes the penalty that guilty sinners deserve so they might be reconciled to God is presented as the perfect lens through which to explain the mission of Jesus.

3. Conclusion

It bears repeating from the opening paragraphs that PSA is not the only way to describe the significance of Jesus’s death. But Rillera’s arguments that it is not at all a way to describe the significance of Jesus’s death are problematic in various ways, which could be summarized as follows: they miss key relevant texts (see 2.7); they rest on unstated problematic assumptions (see 2.4 and 2.5) or equivocate (see 2.1); they put forward complex explanations of textual data in place of simpler explanations (see 2.2 and 2.4); and they do not attend carefully enough to textual data that points in different directions from their claims (see 2.1, 2.3, and 2.6).⁹³Again, for a much longer review I have written that interacts with the large majority of the book’s arguments against PSA, see n. 19.

My hope is that the above has shown not only some of the problems with the book’s main arguments but also that PSA is indeed one of the ways to describe the significance of Jesus’s death—one that is central to the Bible’s own description. We find it at the heart of sacrificial atonement (Lev 17:11), see it displayed in the imagery of the scapegoat (16:20–22) and the suffering servant (Isaiah 53), and find NT authors using it as the explanatory framework for what happened in Jesus’s death (Rom 3:25–26; 5:7–8; Heb 9:28).

Why does this matter? In summarizing the gospel as proclaimed by the early church, Paul begins, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). If Christ’s death for our sins is where the gospel begins, getting it right matters deeply indeed.

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