²² We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Romans 3:22-26

Dear God, I was listening to a podcast on Saturday morning where the host discussed the theology of “substitutionary atonement.” Basically, the idea that Jesus death/sacrifice was a substitute for the death and separation from you we deserve because of our sin. The speaker, Skye Jethani, was saying that he wrote a book called What is Jesus was Serious about Justice, in which he talked about this. He confessed that he went into it hoping to poke holes in the idea of substitutionary atonement, but ended up having it confirmed to him even more. He was giving a brief answer to a question, so he didn’t go into it deeply, but he mentioned the Isaiah 53:4-6 as an example:

⁴ Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
⁵ But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
⁶ All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

I think this passage from Paul in Romans works as well, specifically in verses 24-25a:

²⁴ Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.

One of the objections to substitutionary atonement I’ve heard before is that this is child abuse on your part. You punished your son. You mocked, beat, tortured, and brutally killed your son so give yourself some kind of appeasement for my sin. But Skye pointed out, and I agree, that you weren’t the one doing the mocking, beating, torturing, and killing. The plan that you and Jesus had–the plan Jesus talked to Moses and Elijah about in Luke 9:30-31:

³⁰ Suddenly, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. ³¹ They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.

It’s what Jesus was praying about in the Garden of Gethsemane the night of his arrest in Luke 22:41-44:

⁴¹ He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” ⁴³ Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. ⁴⁴ He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Jesus isn’t saying, “Father, don’t hurt me or kill me.” He is saying, “If there’s any other way, please pick that one.” But there wasn’t any other way. We walked away from you. We walk away from you in the present. We will walk away from you in the future. How are you to receive us again? Because Jesus, who never walked away from you, allowed himself to be taken away from you by the sin of the men of the time–the sin of us all.

Finally, Paul says something interesting here about how this atonement works for those who had lived previously in verses 25b-26:

This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

It is interesting that Paul depicts you, at least in this translation, as being the punisher of sin. I’ll admit I’m tempted to overlook that word because it doesn’t fit my thesis and points from before. There is a certain distastefulness for me when I see you as the punishing God. But when I see you as the father who lets the son go, that version of you makes more sense.

Father, I struggle with so much when it comes to eternity and you. Will all souls live forever? Honestly, I hope the ones that are separated from you won’t. Is the only way to spend eternity with you through saying the magic words: “I need Jesus sacrifice to cover my sins, I repent of my sins and ask you to forgive me, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior”? Maybe, but that leaves an awful lot of people on the wrong side of the cut line even though they weren’t any worse in life than I am. Do certain sins condemn someone more than others? Was Hitler confirmed Lutheran at one point? Does that grace cover his evil? There is no way for me to know the answer to these questions on this side of life. What I do know is that I am here to worship you today. I want to be your tool in this world. I want to glorify you in all things. And I want to introduce others to the God I know so that they might know you now and join me in worshipping you for all eternity.

I pray this ignorant and feeble prayer in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen