4.13.26 ~ PSA: It Sounds Correct

Yeshua's own words make a very clear point about His death: that it is a participatory phenomenon. Remember this from the Passover to Calvary—it is something that all their culture shares experientially. The logic is not that Jesus died so we don't have to. Based on the patterns we learned last week, Jesus died so that we, together, can follow the steps and die with Him (1 Pet. 2:21) and, like Him, have full fellowship with His suffering so that we might share in the likeness of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10–11). While Jesus did die on our behalf, it does not mean that Jesus died instead of us. It means that He died ahead of us… and with us.

Last week we examined the word for grace (chen)—merited favor. We talked about the tzadik, the pattern of the righteous one who stands for the benefit of others; the one who has demonstrated faithfulness becomes their standing. We saw Moses at the golden calf (Ex. 32–33). We saw that Noah himself had found favor (Gen. 6). Joseph and the people of Egypt (Gen. 37) and certainly Yeshua as the ultimate fulfillment of the pattern.

The one whose faith (pistis), whose faithfulness, has proven chen (grace) before the Father covers all those who, through faith, are bound to Him. Over the millennia, we have adopted a lot of assumptions in evangelical circles. For this week of counting the Omer (Days 9–14), I am not going to start with any of my positions, personal opinions, or traditional arguments. I am going to start with leading theologians.

Here is a quote from a major Christian mission organization, eastwest.org, which explains how Jesus fulfills the Passover lamb. It says: "Each of these passages not only point to Jesus as the Passover lamb who takes away the sin of the world, but also to His work as our substitute. He died in our place. He had no sin of His own, yet Jesus paid for our sin. The Father stacked the collected sins of mankind on the shoulders of His Son, turned away from Him while He experienced death for our sins. That is the essence of the Christian faith—namely, substitution." The quote ends: "If you do not understand substitution, you do not understand Christianity."

And here is gotquestions.org, as I shared with you last week, one of the largest Christian reference sites in the world: "Another important sacrifice involving lambs was the daily sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. Every morning and evening a lamb was sacrificed in the temple for the sins of the people." Now hold onto that statement. The Passover lamb here and the daily temple sacrifices are blended together. They are both lambs. They both involve death. So they must be doing the same thing, right? The logic seems very, very obvious. The lamb dies. The lamb is the substitute. Jesus is the lamb. Jesus is the substitute. Done. It is not a belief that is built on just one verse. It is built on a network of texts and also assumptions.

John the Immerser looks at Yeshua and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). Paul writes in Romans that God displayed Yeshua publicly as a propitiation in blood (Rom. 3:25). Isaiah 53 says, "The Lord was pleased to crush the servant, rendering him as a guilt offering" (Isa. 53:10). And the Passover lamb sits right at the center of it, especially during Passover week—especially on that week when you tie everything together: Jesus was sacrificed on the cross by God to appease His wrath that was intended for us.

The theological framework behind all of it is called Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA)—not your prostate. Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) is the idea that humanity deserved God's punishment, that God's justice required that punishment be carried out, and that Jesus stepped in as our substitute, taking the penalty on Himself so that we would not have to bear it. God was angry. Jesus absorbed the anger. We go free. PSA. Remember the quote: "The essence of the Christian faith, namely substitution. If you do not understand substitution, you do not understand Christianity." And I realize that for most of us, whether we are from a Christian background or even a Messianic one—because truthfully, much theology in Messianic Judaism has been inherited from the church when it comes to Jesus and the New Testament—this framework feels untouchable, a bedrock to build your theological house on. It feels like the thing that supports everything.

The word sacrifice itself is synonymous with this formula: something died so that something else may live. Substitutionary death. God required blood. Bulls and goats were not enough. So Jesus…

When many believers hear the word "sacrifice," they think of one category: death payment. But this understanding—when it comes to sacrifice, atonement, forgiveness, the power of the blood, the work of Jesus, the specific power of His blood, and even the nature of God as the disciples understood it through the system—is not entirely correct. Not entirely. And in some very important ways, not at all. I know those are strong words, but I hope to share clearly through what I am teaching you in these remaining forty days of counting the Omer.

This is more than just a Jewish law-abiding perspective. This is a biblical perspective. With Passover in our rearview mirror, and in the middle of the second week of counting the Omer, I want to start with the Passover lamb.

And this is where we will pick up tomorrow. If you are willing to take an assignment, read Exodus 12 and Leviticus 3 before tomorrow :-)

Have a shalom-filled day!

Happy counting of the Omer (traditional Day #9)

Shalom,
Alan