I Changed My Mind on PSA (Protestant)

Indexado: 2026-05-19

[00:00:10][music] >> Hey guys, in this video I'm going to tell you why I changed my mind on PSA.

[00:00:17]But before you comment, I still hold to PSA, but maybe not the PSA that you're thinking in your mind. So, a few months ago I did a debate with Andy from Persuaded Apologetics, and let me just say say this, I'm not a debater, so let let me come out of the gate and just say that in debates you need to use rhetorical flair and to be aggressive, and I don't know, I'm I'm a pastor. That just doesn't sit right with me, and so any opportunity I had to push Andy, um I didn't basically. And so I guess I'm just not the debating sort.

[00:00:49]But Andy asked if I wanted to debate him. This was towards the tail end of 2025, and I agreed. I spent a good a good couple of months just devouring books on atonement, on penal substitutionary atonement, and various other things as well. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, PSA means penal, so that's the P, substitutionary, the S, atonement, A.

[00:01:11]And it essentially means this, Jesus took the penalty we deserve, that's the penal bit, and he did it in our place and on our behalf, that's the substitution, and then his death brings atonement, so we're reconciled to God. And PSA has fallen on hard times. It's maligned online if you know anything about the online world, uh particularly the the the interactions between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, then you'll know that there's a great number of debates on this, and even among evangelicals as well. And so I was studying PSA, I read all of the key texts, you know, so pierced for our transgressions, I read Turretin, I read John Stott, I read other atonement books, I watched debates, I listened to podcasts, I did it all, like and the kitchen sink.

[00:01:56]And as I considered PSA with my Bible open, I changed my mind. And the change was on the specific articulation of PSA that you find in some circles. And so, the way it's often explained is like this: God is angry, and he's holy, and he's wrathful, and he's going to send you to hell, and Jesus stepped in, and it's almost as if Jesus is God's whipping boy, and he received condemnation. He was damned to hell on the cross, and God the Father hated him on the cross. And now, if you believe in Jesus, then you won't go to hell.

[00:02:28]Some people might say that's a straw man. I don't think it is. That seemed to me to me to be a typical way that people talked about PSA. God's angry, Jesus steps in, he's damned to hell on the cross, and now we're at peace because we believe in him. And that's kind of how I would have articulated PSA as well, until I did more reading. And I came to see this as a big problem. It's actually borderline heresy.

[00:02:50]And for this reason, if the Father hated the Son on the cross, if the Father damned and condemned the Son to hell, then there is a moment in the life of the Trinity where we have a rupture.

[00:03:05]See, to be hated and damned is to be split from the Father.

[00:03:11]Now, sometimes the response to that is, "But Jesus is only suffering in his human nature, not his divine nature."

[00:03:18]And so, the divine Jesus is still good with his Father, right? Everything's fine there.

[00:03:23]But, um not the human nature.

[00:03:26]The human Jesus is under damnation.

[00:03:30]And by doing that, you can say hello to Nestorius. This is the Nestorian heresy.

[00:03:34]Now, you have two Jesus's, a divine Jesus and a human Jesus, and you just can't split the two up like that. Jesus needs to be two natures united in one person in order to save us.

[00:03:48]And now, some of the pushback might be, "Well, God can't die, and yet Jesus died, and so it must have been his humanity that died. Uh but remember that death is proper to human nature. And so there are some things which are proper to the human nature and not the divine nature. So like not knowing the hour of his return or being thirsty or tired.

[00:04:07]These things are proper to human nature.

[00:04:10]And so as opposed to personhood is what I what I meant to say.

[00:04:15]And so it seemed to me that you have a big problem. Right? If the Father sends the Son to hell on the cross, then you have either one, a split in the Trinity, or two, a Nestorian Jesus. And I haven't seen a good answer on how you can avoid these two heresies. And if you are someone that has the key, please let me know in the comments. I'd actually love to see you work around this. Genuinely, I think it would be really good to see some kind of answer.

[00:04:42]Now, the other reason I reject the hell version of PSA is it doesn't seem to be biblical.

[00:04:47]It doesn't really come out of scripture, I don't think. I don't I don't think we see anywhere that Jesus gets hell's punishment on the cross or there's a tear in the Trinity or that the Father hates the Son. And so to me it seems to be sub-biblical.

[00:05:02]And yet I still affirm PSA. And so I guess this is part two of the video. I realized there's a more biblical and a more modest way to talk about penal substitutionary atonement. And it's a version held by Turretin and other theologians, and it's what we find in the Fathers as well.

[00:05:18]Um and this approach argues that Jesus is penalized. Uh he dies a death he doesn't deserve to die. Remember the wages of sin is death, and so death is a penal reality. It is a penalty for sin, and Jesus is not a sinner. And so he's dying on behalf and instead of his people, and this death brings us to God.

[00:05:36]And so it's still PSA, penal substitutionary atonement, but it removes, I believe, some of the heretical add-ons.

[00:05:44]Now, you might wonder how this is possible.

[00:05:48]Let me give you Turretin. First of all, he says you cannot say that Christ entered the place of the damned or he was damned. He could bear the punishments of those deserving to be damned, but not of the damned so that he entered into the infernal place prepared for them or that he was devoted to eternal destruction.

[00:06:05]Now, you might wonder then, how can Jesus save us from damnation?

[00:06:09]And Turretin answers by saying, well, God must punish sin because he's just, but the way he punishes sin isn't essential to the attribute of justice.

[00:06:19]And he goes on to say that because of the dignity of Christ's person, he can take God's wrath without having to be damned and under God's hatred. It's all about who it is that's dying. Yes, we deserve to be damned for our sin, but the one on the cross is the holy Son of God and his blood is worth infinity.

[00:06:36]It's immeasurably valuable.

[00:06:39]In what sense was Christ penalized?

[00:06:41]Turretin says, it's not a splitting of natures, it's not in losing communion with the Father, but God's suspending the favorable presence of grace and happiness. See, Christ lost the sensed presence of God's love and goodness. And we know this to be true. This is biblical.

[00:06:57]On the cross, Jesus said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" So, he felt something. Now, some people try and say, "Well, no, Jesus isn't doing that.

[00:07:05]He's just quoting from Psalm 22."

[00:07:07]And yet, he is quoting from Psalm 22. He is wanting us to realize what's happening as he's dying, but verse one is part of Psalm 20 22, right? So, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is still part of the Psalm that Jesus is quoting. And so, Jesus is experiencing this felt lostness of the presence and grace and happiness of God's blessings. Just quickly and finally, so that you don't think this is some sort of weird Protestant take, let me give you some fathers and I've tried to pick some ones that I've never picked before on this topic. So, here's the Epistle to Diognetus.

[00:07:41]He himself took on him the burden of our iniquities. He gave his own son as a ransom for us, the holy one for transgressors, the blameless one for the wicked, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the incorruptible one for the corruptible, the immortal one for those who are mortal. Oh, sweet exchange, that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous one, and that the righteousness of one should justify many transgressors.

[00:08:08]Here's Athanasius in his letter to Marcellinus. For although he was not himself obliged to give account for any crime, he died, but he suffered on our behalf, and he took on himself the wrath directed against us on account of the transgression.

[00:08:24]Here's Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechetical lecture. He said, "God had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs therefore have happened one of two things. Either God in his truth should destroy all men, or that he should cancel the sentence. But behold the wisdom of God. He preserved both the truth of his sentence and the exercise of his loving kindness.

[00:08:46]Christ took our sins in his body on the tree."

[00:08:50]Here's Gregory of Nazianzus in his fourth oration. He says, "For my sake he was called a curse, who destroyed my curse, and sin who takes away the sin of the world. He makes my disobedience his own as the head of the whole body. As long then as I am obedient and rebellious, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account."

[00:09:13]Here's Ambrose commenting on 2 Corinthians 5:21. So was the Lord turned into sin?

[00:09:19]Not so. But since he assumed our sins, he is called sin. Of the Lord is also called an accursed thing.

[00:09:26]Not because the Lord was turned into an accursed thing, but because he took on our curse. He was made sin.

[00:09:34]Finally, my favorite father, Cyril of Alexandria in his commentary on John, "For since the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer suffice not unto the purging away of sin, nor yet would the slaughter of brute beasts ever have destroyed the power of death.

[00:09:48]Christ himself came in some way to undergo punishment for all, for with his stripes we were healed. And he was crucified for all and on account of all, that if one died for all, all we might live in him."

[00:10:02]And so there are a few quotes in the fathers to see the more modest language of PSA, the penalty that was due to us being given over to Christ. He stands on our behalf. He becomes a curse for us.

[00:10:13]And through him we are healed and restored.

[00:10:17]And so just a quick one today, a brief reason why I changed my mind on PSA from the strong hellfire version to I believe the more modest and more biblical and more historical version as well. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Make sure you hit like and subscribe. See you again next time.

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