John Mark Comer, regarded as a leading Christian voice, recently posted a statement that seemed to be a public rejection of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA).
“This seems to be the final biblical/exegetical knock out blow to PSA.”
Comer posted such blatant comments after reading and featuring Andrew Rillera’s book, Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death (published in 2024 by Cascade Books).
As you can imagine, Comer faced strong pushback and a call for clarity on his theology. He then posted an apology, not for denying PSA, but for failing to clarify that his real issue is how modern “Evangelical-Christian” circles overly emphasize the manufactured violence and retributive aspects of Jesus’s atonement on the cross, overlooking his mercy and love.
I appreciate Comer’s tone and desire for unity, but I find it unsettling that he offers no substantial theological reasoning to support his stance. Instead, he hides behind the typical rhetoric of accusing a group of “unknown” Evangelicals of hijacking the doctrine of atonement.
So, in the remainder of this article, I will outline what Dr. Rillera believes about PSA and his views on the nature of atonement in the Bible. I will then respond by highlighting theological differences with Dr. Rillera’s position and, from that, respectfully share my concerns about the theological slippery slope Comer is on.
Rillera’s position on PSA
Dr. Rillera believes the primary purpose of the Torah sacrifices was to offer the Jews purification, consecration, and restoration with God — they were not about retributive justice.
Sacrifices, which John Mark Comer probably favors based on his views of God and his Practicing the Way, are gifts meant to cleanse impurities rather than a requirement for a legal debt or punishment. Therefore, sacrifices are non-penal.
In Lamb of the Free, Rillera examines various verses in the Gospels, Romans, and Hebrews that use sacrificial language about Christ’s death. Each occurrence, argues Rillera, should be understood metaphorically because the main point is about forming a covenant with God, not about Jesus taking on our punishment for sin. Dr. Rillera advances this idea by suggesting that Jesus as the “Passover Lamb” represents a sacrifice of liberation from slavery, rather than a sacrifice that bears sin and faces divine wrath.
A response to denying PSA
First, Rillera defines PSA narrowly as the idea that Jesus’s death was a vicarious punishment in which God the Father punishes the Son with retributive justice instead of sinners. Rillera also presents PSA as a false dichotomy in the Triune Godhead between Jesus being an innocent, self-loving Son who sacrifices His life and God the Father acting in vengeance and driven by retribution.
However, we read the opposite in the Scriptures. Jesus, while on earth, declared this about Himself and the Father: “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). Jesus goes on to add, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (John 10:17), and concludes by affirming, “This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18).
Second, I agree that the term PSA is not used in the Bible, and we must be careful not to confuse it; however, it is a part of what Christ accomplished and fulfilled for us on the cross. There has never been an official creedal formula of atonement, but various theories have been proposed to define and capture the full scope of Jesus’s atonement. These include Recapitulation Theory (restoring humanity), Satisfaction Theory (God’s wrath satisfied), Substitution Theory (payment for penalty), Ransom Theory (Jesus paid a debt to Satan), and Moral Theory (demonstration of mercy and love).
I don’t believe any of these theories, including PSA, fully do justice in capturing the completeness and extent of Jesus’s atonement, but together, they provide a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of its layers.
Third, if you read Leviticus 16, you will see that on Yom Kippur, the scapegoat was the one who carried away the sins, meaning the priest penally transferred Israel’s sins onto the animal. In Leviticus 17:11, it says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” In context, Romans 5:9 shows, “we have now been justified by his blood,” highlighting that Jesus Christ (the “Lamb of God,” John 1:29) is the fulfillment of the animal sacrifices traditionally offered on Israel’s behalf on the Day of Atonement (see 1 Peter 1:18-19; 2:22–25).
Fourth, Dr. Rillera tends to minimize the language of atonement, suggesting that few words were used to explain its meaning and significance. That is not true at all. Paul uses two key words for atonement: apolytrōsis(“deliverance through substitution”) and hilastērion (“sacrifice or place of atonement”). The Greek term apolytrōsis (Romans 3:24; 8:23; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 1:7, 14; 4:30; Colossians 1:14) comes from apo (“separation”) and lutroō (“to ransom”), and ties back to Hebrew terms like pidyon (“a price or ransom that must be paid”), kapar (“to cover or atone for sins”), and ga’al (“to redeem or buy back”). The other Greek term, hilastērion (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 9:5), is rendered as “propitiation” and points to the kapporet — the Mercy Seat above the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.
Paul’s deliberate use of these atonement terms unmistakably grounds Christ’s substitutionary death in Old Testament sacrificial imagery. He presents the crucifixion not as divine cruelty but as the fulfillment of Levitical rituals — an act of love that satisfies God’s wrath against sin and defeats the works of the devil.
I would also press Comer and Rillera on viewing or interpreting PSA as a form of incarceration. That is not an accurate depiction or metaphor of PSA because it neither recognizes the redemptive quality of Christ’s sacrifice nor does it adequately address holy and righteous justice. Comer likes to see the cross of Christ more as “restorative justice,” which sounds very similar to how many progressive Christians define it. And yet, at the end of Romans 5:9, Paul writes that the death of Christ saves us from the “wrath of God.”
Something that I urge John Mark Comer to reconcile in his theology is the doctrinal importance and necessity of justice in Christ’s substitution, as Paul preaches, “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
I hope that Comer will not continue down a path of progressive theology to satisfy the modern culture’s tendency to water down the holiness and justice of God and the deadliness of sin. There is a danger in portraying the cross of Christ as more of Him participating with us to foster love and wholeness rather than as covering our sin that leads to eternal damnation (see Romans 3:26).
