Skip to content The Failure of Philosophy, Part 3 Jun 29 · 28 min ...more
The Failure of Philosophy, Part 3
June 29, 2025 · 28 min
Crucifixion on its own is horrific enough...but if you believe Jesus' death on the cross was the punishment for our sins, it's even WORSE. Some object and say the cross was about pure love—nothing ...
Series Season 9 June 29, 2025 · 28 min · Season 9
Crucifixion on its own is horrific enough...but if you believe Jesus' death on the cross was the punishment for our sins, it's even WORSE. Some object and say the cross was about pure love—nothing ... ...more Show the full description Show less Crucifixion on its own is horrific enough...but if you believe Jesus' death on the cross was the punishment for our sins, it's even WORSE. Some object and say the cross was about pure love—nothing ...
Series Season 9
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Authentic with Shawn Boonstra confronts life’s toughest questions head-on: What is our purpose? What is true love? Explore the depths of human existence and
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In this video 0:00 Understanding the Cross8:24 The Substitutionary Atonement
Understanding the Cross 0:00 You know, I've been asked more than once, what actually happened at the cross? It's a pretty big question. So today, we'll start digging into some of the confusion that modern Christianity just might have brought to that0:11 subject.0:33 Once upon a time on a show in the not too distant past, we took a look at the inadvertent damage caused by the Christian theologians who left us under the impression that we can arrive at ultimate truth,0:44 we can trace a path to the throne of God just by using unaided human reason. And of course, what that did very slowly was lead to a system of philosophy in the west that tragically brought0:56 us to some intellectual dead ends during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Then we looked at what happens when we use unaided reason to build Christian theology without comparing what we believe against1:08 the thoughts actually presented in the pages of the bible. The specific example we looked at last time was this idea that God will torture sinners throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. An idea1:20 that seems to hold a lot of weight if you just cherry pick the bible. Now, just in case anybody thinks that I'm preaching some kind of universalism where everybody can do whatever they want and still be saved, that's not1:32 at all what the scriptures teach either. There will be lost people. It's tragic, but it's true. In fact, I don't know how you can read the entire bible and avoid coming to that conclusion. Many1:44 years ago, I happened to be sitting in a meeting where the subject of preaching the gospel came up, and I reminded people that sinners are described in the bible as lost. And if they ultimately reject the gift of the
1:55 cross, they stay lost. These people are not just misinformed according to the Bible, and they're not just a little bit misguided. The Bible says they're lost. Now bear in mind that this was a
2:07 group of Christians. When I tell you that I heard this gasp down at 1 end of the table and somebody suddenly said, well, that's an extreme position, which took me by surprise because it's clearly the historical
2:19 biblical position. And when I probed this person a little more to see why they thought it was extreme, she told me that God just loves people too much to reject anybody. And I guess that's kind of
2:31 true. The bible does reveal a God of love and it shows us the incredible lengths he went to in order to save you because he can't bear the thought of living forever without you. The very existence
2:43 of the cross of Christ should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that God really is love, but we do have to ask ourselves, would God actually force somebody into the kingdom of God to live
2:55 there forever if he or she didn't actually wanna be there? What kind of heaven would it be if unrepentant sinners were there? People who want to live the same way they lived in this life, the lifestyle that caused all
3:06 that pain and misery. What sense would it make to push them into that foreign environment that they don't want? If they don't like God in this life, what makes us think they're gonna want God in the next 1?
3:18 Why would God force anybody to be there? It doesn't make sense. And it's not biblical. It's another example of how human logic can really mess things up if it's not
3:30 informed by the totality of scripture, all the information in the Bible. Sometimes to our way of thinking, love should always be soft and fuzzy and it never does the hard thing. Some of us think that love
3:42 just shrugs its shoulders and looks the other way all the time because I mean who wants to be mean? But parents know that's not love. That's not true. The easy thing is to never discipline your
3:54 child. But then most of us have seen what happens just a few years down the line when you ignore those kids. You end up with an entitled brat who's gonna have a really hard time getting along with other people.
4:06 Ignoring early bad behavior might be easy, but it's certainly not loving. You know, I've often wondered if the real reason people don't want God to deal with sin is because they
4:18 just don't want them to deal with their sin. It's what I was talking about the last time we met. Sometimes we look at the cross of Christ and we don't wanna think that somehow Jesus had to die in our place, that he had
4:30 to take our punishment because that would say an awful lot about just how wicked I really am. And if we read the bible and see that God's going to deal with sin once and for all,
4:42 and if we see that some people really deserve what's coming, well that would mean that we deserve it too. So we'd like to think that God is just too nice to make us answer for our crimes, that he's some kind of this
4:54 absent minded grandpa who loves to pat us on the head and slip us a candy, but he never actually deals with us. Which brings me back to the subject of the cross because in recent years, I've met a lot
5:05 of people who refuse to believe that Christ actually died in their place. They're kind of, kind of echoing the teaching of Peter Abelard, a clergyman who lived about a thousand years ago and really
5:17 emphasized the idea that the primary reason for the cross was to show us just how much God loves us. And and of course, I agree with that, at least in part. I
5:29 agree that the cross is a lavish display of God's love. It shows us that God is willing to sacrifice himself to save us. I mean, that's what Paul actually says over in the book of Romans where he
5:41 says, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So, yeah, the cross did demonstrate the size of
5:53 God's love, but that's not the whole equation because that's not all that the cross accomplished. So let's read that verse 1 more time, but this time I'm gonna add a little more context. Again, starting in
6:05 verse 8 it says, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more
6:17 shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved
6:28 by his life. Now, notice that you and I are supposed to suffer the wrath of God. That's not an easy thought, but it's a true thought. And honestly, it's a divine miracle that
6:40 God hasn't already wiped us out because the way we live is this horrible contrast to the actual character of God. Our existence has become a lie about the 1 who made us.
6:52 And if I was in charge, and you can be glad that I'm not, but if I was in charge, I would have been tempted to wipe out the whole human race and just start over. That's the way it plays out in a lot of pagan mythology.
7:05 But fortunately, God's love for you kept him from doing that. The bible clearly teaches that you and I are quote justified by his blood, which means that somehow the death of
7:16 Christ liberates us from the penalty that we actually deserve. Paul reminds us that we are God's enemies, but then the death of Christ somehow reconciles us. Now that
7:28 doesn't mean that you and I are suddenly innocent of all charges, but we are justified by the blood of Christ. We are declared innocent, considered innocent because the son of God took our punishment as 1
7:40 of us, a human being. He took our punishment as an actual representative of the entire human race. You might remember what Paul told the church in Corinth when he said, for as in Adam
7:52 all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. What Paul's telling us is that the first head of the human race, Adam, well, he threw all of us under the bus because when he sinned, he
8:04 passed on a sinful rebellious nature to all of us. It's why we're born corrupted. So what God did was become the second Adam, and he took the just penalty for our rebellion on
8:16 himself, so now we can be adopted into his line of the human race instead of Adam's. I'll be right back after this.
The Substitutionary Atonement
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8:57 I should probably point out something that's kinda popular in some Christian circles and let you know, I don't think it's biblical. Sometimes you'll hear people saying that you and I actually inherited Adam's guilt as if
9:08 God is going to punish me for something that Adam did. But that is not what the Bible teaches, and I can prove it from the old testament book of Ezekiel. This comes from Ezekiel chapter 18 where the bible
9:20 says, the soul who sins shall die. So there you have it. The just penalty for sin is death. The son, it continues, shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the
9:32 father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. So does God hold me
9:44 accountable for something Adam did? No. What I'm responsible for is my sin and I did inherit a sinful tendency from the sinners who came before me. I got their sinful nature, but
9:56 I didn't get their guilt. And I wanted to make that clear because when the bible indicates that Adam passed death on to all of us, that doesn't mean that you and I will die because of something he did. I'm gonna die
10:07 because of something I did. But then you kinda get the opposite when you get the gift of eternal life if you think about it. You're not gonna go to heaven because of something you did, but because of something Jesus did.
10:19 Now, let's dig a little deeper into this idea that Jesus actually died in our place, something theologians call the substitutionary atonement because I'm hearing more and more well meaning Christians
10:31 saying, oh, that can't be true. He didn't die in my place or take my punishment. Instead, they say that all God really did at the cross was show us how much he loves us. Now that's something that some people call
10:43 moral influence theory. And I think the reason that some people want that to be true is because, again, we don't really wanna believe that our sins are serious enough to cause what happened at the cross.
10:55 It would mean that sin is far more consequential than you and I can even begin to understand. So human logic, when it's not informed by the scriptures, tries to come to a different
11:07 conclusion. Yet, the scriptures are crystal clear that Jesus took your place. And I'll show you from 1 of the clearest chapters found in the bible, and that would be Isaiah chapter 53. This
11:19 is a very well known prediction of Jesus. It's the prophecy of the suffering servant. This is a prediction about a servant of God who would suffer in ways that are hard to comprehend.
11:30 So let's take a really quick look at this because it's very hard to read this chapter from Isaiah and still come to the conclusion that somehow Jesus didn't absorb my punishment for my sin. And I'm
11:42 really gonna start in Isaiah chapter 52 because, well, remember, chapters and verses were only put into the bible about a thousand years after Christ a little bit more. And I'm thankful for them because it makes the
11:54 bible easier to navigate. But sometimes the start of a new chapter can give you the false impression that you're starting a brand new thought. In this case, the thought actually begins back in chapter 52 and
12:06 here's what it says. His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So here we have a prediction of the way that Jesus would
12:18 be treated. Even though the people doing this to him were mostly aware that he was innocent, they brutalized him in a way that completely disfigured his appearance. Traditionally, we know that victims of
12:29 crucifixion even had their beard ripped out, something you find predicted back in Isaiah chapter 50. Now this continues in Isaiah 52 verse 15. It says, so shall he sprinkle
12:41 many nations. Now the sprinkling of blood is a concept taken straight out of the Old Testament sanctuary where the blood of an innocent victim, an animal offered for sin, was taken into the holy place and sprinkled
12:53 against the veil. And then on the day of atonement once a year, that blood was sprinkled on the lid of the ark of the covenant. This is a very clear reference to the sanctuary and its sacrificial
13:05 services, sin offering. And then he tells us that Jesus isn't just for the nation of Israel, but also for the
13:17 nations of the world, something you find all the way through the rest of Isaiah's book. Now some people, some have suggested that this word sprinkle should actually be translated
13:29 startle because they say the cross should be an astonishing display of God's love. It should be startling, which of course it is. But that's not all it is. It's not just a big surprise.
13:41 Now they get that variant, that translation from the Septuagint or the Greek translation of the Old Testament, but honestly they're getting it wrong in my opinion because the the Hebrew word for sprinkle is nazah, which
13:52 means spatter as in the spattering of blood in the sanctuary. It's not startle, it is spatter. Now for the sake of time, let's just jump down now to Isaiah
14:04 chapter 53 in verse 4, where we have the next clear reference to Jesus as a sacrificial lamb, a victim who takes our punishment. It says, surely he has borne our
14:16 griefs and carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
14:29 Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed. The book of Isaiah was written to a people who had been suffering incredibly. After all,
14:40 they were being attacked by the Assyrians who were incredibly brutal. And in the near future, those people's grief would be multiplied when the Babylonians destroyed the temple and took a lot of God's
14:52 people back to Babylon as captives. So this prediction is really pretty mind blowing. Messiah would come and take their griefs and sorrows on himself. What griefs and sorrows?
15:05 The ones they were suffering as the just penalty for their sin. But what some people do with this is build a case on the next phrase where it says, we esteemed him stricken, and they say
15:16 Jesus wasn't really smitten by God the Father. It just looked that way. We esteemed it to be that way. You see, that way, with that understanding, the suffering of Christ would be the result of human
15:28 beings attacking him that day and it wouldn't really be God's judgment against sin. Then they move on to the fifth verse where it says that Jesus would be pierced for our transgressions. And they
15:40 change the obvious meaning, the plain reading to make it seem a little less harsh. Nah. They say, he was pierced because of our transgressions, the ones we committed that day. He just suffered because of the way we
15:52 nailed him to a cross and mocked him that day and really only on that day. It's just those sins. But even some of the most liberal bible translations in the world, the ones you would think would wanna take
16:04 away the brutal impact of the substitutionary atonement. Even those translations continue to render this as for our transgressions, not because of. Why? Well, that's what the
16:16 text actually says and the context doesn't really let you read it any other way. I mean, sure, if you only had that 1 statement without the rest of the chapter, maybe you could read it as, he was pierced as a result of
16:28 our transgressions that day. But given the sheer scope of the prophecy, that is not what it says. I mean, if you have to nitpick over the meaning of 1 single word in isolation from the rest of the context, that's
16:39 not a very strong case. And then they do the same thing with the next important clause in this prophecy where the Bible says that Jesus was crushed for our iniquities.
16:51 And what they want you to think is that we did the crushing and only on that day 2000 years ago, as if it's only talking about the single sin of the people who nailed Jesus to that cross. But
17:03 again, you have to ignore the rest of the chapter to make it read that way because down in verse 10 we find out quote, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. You know, as a really good friend of mine used to say, if
17:15 the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense or you'll get nonsense. I'll be right back after this.
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17:55 Alright. We're back. And now we're gonna look at verse 7 of Isaiah 53 where the Bible says this, he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is
18:06 led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent so he opened not his mouth. It's at this point that we really have no choice but to see Jesus through the
18:18 lens of the Old Testament sacrifices. Some people who don't like the idea of a substitutionary atonement, this idea that Jesus died in my place, They want you to think that Isaiah is just describing
18:30 some mob injustice that day. That the audience on that day figured Jesus deserved what he was getting. But look at it very carefully, it's a reference to the hundreds of thousands of lambs that have
18:42 been sacrificed for sin in the centuries leading up to the death of Christ. Historically speaking, not 1 Israelite looked at that lamb he was about to slaughter and said, you know, this innocent little
18:54 lamb really deserves this. I mean the whole point of the sacrifice was an innocent victim that didn't deserve it. You confessed your sin over that lamb and then you had to
19:06 take the life of that lamb yourself which symbolized the idea that someone else had to die because of you. Your guilt was symbolically transferred to the animal and then the blood was carried inside
19:18 the sanctuary and presented in front of the throne of God. The entire system was built on the idea that someone else was going to die in your place. And as we see in
19:29 Isaiah 53 verse 8, Jesus would be quote, stricken for the transgression of my people. I mean, just sit down and read the whole chapter out loud and ask yourself, does
19:41 this really sound like the cross is nothing more than a good example? Let's just read the rest of it. It says, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. In other words, it was God the father who took the initiative
19:53 at the cross, not us. That doesn't mean we're innocent of Jesus' death because clearly we're not, but notice that the idea of the sacrifice began, not with us, but in heaven. He has
20:05 put him to grief, it continues, when his soul makes an offering for guilt. Whose guilt? Not his guilt, our guilt. He shall see his offspring, it says. He shall prolong his days. The will of the
20:17 Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his shall the Righteous 1, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.
20:29 Not literally righteous, of course, but accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities. Now, I I don't know how much plainer it can be than that statement. It continues again. Therefore,
20:41 will I divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors yet he bore the sin of many and makes
20:52 intercession for the transgressors. There's just no way to read this passage and honestly suggest that Jesus didn't take my guilt on himself at the cross. It's
21:04 just not possible. It says he bore the sin of many, which again is a clear allusion to the work of the priest in the Old Testament sanctuary. And in this case, Jesus is both high priest and
21:16 sacrificial lamb because he offers himself. Remember, Jesus said in John chapter 10, for this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
21:28 No 1 takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father. I mean,
21:39 look, I I get it. The cross doesn't seem fair. That's because it isn't. Even a lot of the harshest critics out there still like the person of Jesus and I think we all pretty much agree he did
21:51 not deserve crucifixion. We instinctively know that what happened was a gross miscarriage of justice. And so when we see it, we don't wanna think that somehow we had a role to play in that. We don't wanna
22:03 think that our sins are actually that bad. And I know that some of you grew up in homes where somebody constantly told you, you are bad. God's gonna get you. And so when you hear that your
22:15 sins cost Jesus that much, there's a part of you that pushes back because you think it confirms what you were told as a kid. But just forget that for a moment because it's not just
22:27 your sins that did this to Jesus, mine did it too and so did the sins of your parents and your neighbors and your fellow churchgoers and your friends and every person who's ever lived. Sin
22:39 really is that bad. But the cross isn't a rejection of you. It's God saying, I love you far too much to lose you, and I'm willing to take your place to make sure I don't lose
22:51 you. The cross of Christ is a confirmation that God wants you, and he wants you pretty badly. And I get it. Our pride wants to tell us that can't be true, but it is. And
23:03 what I recommend is that you just stand there for a while. Stand at the foot of the cross and recognize that it's my pride that pushed the crown of thorns into his head. It's my unbelief that
23:15 becomes a spear between his ribs. It's my sin that drives those nails through his hands and feet and when he suddenly cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well at that
23:26 moment, he just took my place, separated from a holy father. And then you've got to ask yourself why in the world he'd wanna do that. I'll be right back after this.
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24:10 You know, human pride is really good at finding a thousand reasons that something isn't our fault. And it's on that front that human reason begins to fail because well, it paints a pretty warped
24:22 picture of self. We've become experts at pushing the blame in another direction. And to be sure, not everything that's wrong in our lives really is our fault. But there's enough of your
24:34 own guilt that not 1 of us is able to claim innocence. And I think that at some level, we all know that. If you and I had to stand in the presence of God right now without the gift of the
24:46 cross, how do you think that meeting would go? Even those little things, the tiny misdeeds that we tell ourselves aren't all that bad. Well, I can promise you, they're gonna seem a whole lot bigger when it's just you
24:58 and God and he begins to ask some questions. And it's scary to admit that because, well, we fear what might happen. But here's the thing, the worst has already
25:10 happened and it happened to Jesus. Remember what Paul said in first Corinthians 5 verse 21. He wrote, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that
25:21 in him we might become the righteousness of God. Now notice again all the initiative comes from God, not us. The cross wasn't just a matter of mob injustice. It was
25:33 actually God's solution for you. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
25:45 Now that can only mean 1 thing. I mean, the bible is crystal clear that Jesus was innocent. Peter says he was a lamb without blemish or spot. You'll find that in first Peter 1 19.
25:58 So how does Jesus become sin? It's because your sin, your guilt was placed on him. He became a human being so that he could represent us and take the penalty for our
26:09 sin in our place. You know, I really like the way that a very godly lady from the nineteenth century put this whole thing. And this is a quote I've shared more than once on this program because
26:21 I love it. It's just that good. Here's the way she phrased the whole thing. Christ was treated as we deserve that we might be treated as he deserves. He was condemned for
26:33 our sins in which he had no share, that we might be justified by his righteousness in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was
26:45 his. With his stripes, we are healed. You know that sometimes I think the cross really scares us because we know what it means if it's true. We really are that
26:57 lost. But let me ask you this, how in the world could you possibly be scared of a God who would go to that length to save you? Yeah, your sin really is that bad. So maybe just
27:09 admit it because it's pretty freeing to confess your sin. You're lost. You need him, and you're going to discover that he's been waiting all your life to forgive you
27:20 and tell the whole universe that you now belong to him. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Shawn Boonstra, and this has been another episode of Authentic.
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