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Writer's pictureLivinginbetweenall-Terry
Apr 25, 20226 min read

God Died with us, not In Place of Us!

Updated: Feb 26

I have been moved by the Spirit to read again and again the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53—during Lent and now in Eastertide. My own heart is moved to prayer often in the early morning hours as it’s central truth cast a light across my own broken, wounded heart.

American Christians of the last century, across multiple denominations, have bought into a Biblically sounding but reductionist gospel—that Jesus died in our place. The very idea is absurd given that the cross on which our Savior lay, his arms outstretched so that the iron spike could find its supportive muscle and bone structure, fastening him cruelly to a splintered beam until death by asphyxiation—is a tortured example of sin’s cruelty, not God's.

It was a cruel, slow and tortuous death by a regime initiated with peaceful intent but having long been transformed into a power centric empire demonstrating its massive presence in this very sign., as if to say, “This is how we treat criminals and those who might wish to rebel our rule.“

Jesus did, die that is. He died as one declared guilty of sedition. He was innocent, but nevertheless perceived as a threat to Rome. Ironically, his followers would repeat his self-giving sacramental sign until when Rome exhaled its last breath, it was Jesus body of followers, whose institution alone could and did pick up the task of feeding the people, repairing the roads, re-building fallen Babylon. How? Why? It is because Jesus followers were affixed in heart and often death to that same cross, They understood the central call of the cross; to die (usually spiritually, often literally) with Jesus. That is exactly what Paul meant when in the circular letter to the. Churches of Asia Minor he writes, “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church” (Colossians‬ ‭1:24‬ ‭NIV‬‬).

Jesus died because his love had become a scandal to both Rome and the Jewish Church more concerned with judgment and evidence of guilt than in the mercy, reconciliation and blessings of Shalom at the very center of God’s purpose. Jesus died because he refused the nationalist agenda of palm waving patriots, choosing instead a donkey as a sign of peaceful intent toward Rome but of judgment upon God’s house for creating a circus like atmosphere in the very place reserved for Greek and Roman seekers.

Jesus didn’t look or act the part of a Son of David. Instead, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” (Isaiah‬ ‭53:2-3‬ ‭NIV).‬‬


The very word “Christian” that identified these who were in “The Way” was first given in Antioch. It was a derisive term for a group the Romans/Grecians thought of as pagan losers, those who did not believe in the gods and like their founder were seditious outlaws worthy of the torture and finality of judgment that was a Roman cross. Again, Isaiah. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted“ (Isaiah 53: 4).

Isaiah envisions the Suffering Servant who fully enters into the experience of every human who is marginalized by sin, their own and the sin of their neighbors; be it prejudices or denial of real opportunity at wealth creation or education or historic cross-generational access to social, spiritual and economic norms.

”By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (Isaiah‬ ‭53:4-5, 8-9‬ ‭NIV‬‬).


This servant of God who suffers with also transforms both the deeply personal and social nature of our shame and guilt flowing to and through us. For in dying with us, we are allowed to die to these false accusers by forgiveness (socially) and accurately confess and receive the forgiveness and reconciliation that only love shared can give. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah‬ ‭53:4-5, 8-9‬ ‭NIV‬‬).


“Alas and did my Savior bleed

and did my Sivereign die.

Would he devote that sacred head

for such a one as I?”


The gospel given from Abraham forward is that we are called to bless the earth with the certain knowledge that God’s heart is both affectionately and kindly available to everyone. At great cost, fully aware and having drank of the cup of sin’s wrath, God has atoned for the cross-generational, historic sin of our first parents. In the entire incarnation and as focused in the Roman cross, God the Father—Eternal Son—Spirit is fully reconciled to every human, the only part of which is provisional is our personal sin—and that in respect of our human freedom.

As Wesleyans we further understand that the Trinity of God is with every daughter and son of Adam ensuring the image of God is increasingly restored by way of this same cross and the human life lived by Jesus of Nazareth. As Jesus prays by The Spirit (Romans 8) in us we are offered an exchange of our wounded, broken self for Christ’s Vision or calling.

This act of atonement focused in the tortuous Roman cross extends both backward to creations birth and forward into eternity according to John of the Revelation (Rev 13: 8b ) and Colossians 3: 1-4. The violence is the result of human excesses, not God. But it is the unity of the Father—Eternal Son and Spirit that turns sin’s wrath into our redemption.

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”

‭‭(Isaiah‬ ‭53:10-12‬ ‭NIV‬‬).


How one gets from this horrifically beautiful narrative to infer a legal adjudication by an omnipotent Sovereign who not only is not reconciled, but has judged each human equally worthy of a Roman excecution designed to enhance suffering by extended torture were it not for The Son dying to avert the Father’s wrath, I will never get. It absolutely serves as a picture of God suffering with, in and for us and by extension we with, in and for the world. It cannot serve as a sign of justice satisfied.


Wesleyan theologians I know either do not hold to a Penal Substitution Theory or nuance it significantly. The only truth of it that I see is the very real and appropriate need to feel and express in Godly Sorrow , “Against You Lord, have I sinned.” Beyond that, even what is technically true is a larger distortion of the gospel; At great cost, our Communal God is reconciled to every human in so far as our shared sin in Adam and the wounds that attend. In the same way God desires an inter-personal cleansing, healing of personal sin.

Blessings! Terry


Visual Podcasts on Atonement


A Critique on PSA called: “God Died with us, not In Place of Us!” https://youtu.be/YurNxBTFieY



Good Friday Reading: https://youtu.be/3KqNffZiTCI


Palm Sunday Passion: https://youtu.be/okVW60_7dYk


Four Visual Podcasts on ”Why Did Jesus Die?












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