Appendix H

Responding to Rillera on Substitution and Participation — Why "Instead Of" and "With" Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Introduction

We have now worked our way through Andrew Rillera's Lamb of the Free chapter by chapter—examining his claims about Old Testament sacrifice (Appendix E), his treatment of the Passover and the Lord's Supper (Appendix F), and his reading of key New Testament texts (Appendix G). In this final appendix, we come to what I believe is the most important issue raised by Rillera's book: the relationship between substitution and participation.

Rillera's conclusion is bold and sweeping. He argues that the word "substitution" should be abandoned entirely as a way of describing what Jesus accomplished in his death. His reason? Substitution and participation are, in his view, mutually exclusive. If Jesus died instead of us (substitution), then we should not also have to die with him (participation). But the New Testament everywhere calls believers to take up their cross, to be co-crucified with Christ, to share in his sufferings and death. Therefore, Rillera concludes, substitution cannot be the right category. We should speak instead of solidarity, participation, union, and co-crucifixion.¹

I want to say at the outset that Rillera is asking a genuine and important question. If Jesus truly died in our place, why are we still called to take up our cross? This is not a silly question—it is one that serious theologians have wrestled with for centuries. And Rillera presses it with real force.

But his answer—that we must choose between substitution and participation—rests on a false dichotomy. The New Testament does not force us to choose. It holds both together, seamlessly and consistently. Christ's substitutionary act is the foundation for the participatory reality. Without the substitution, there would be nothing to participate in. In this appendix, I will argue that the claim "Jesus died ahead of us and with us" (Rillera's preferred framing) does not exclude but rather presupposes "Jesus died instead of us." Furthermore, I will show that Rillera's own theological logic contains internal tensions that undermine his argument.

Section 1: Rillera's Argument Summarized — Substitution vs. Participation

Before we respond, we need to make sure we understand Rillera's position as clearly and fairly as possible. I want to present his case at its strongest. Rillera makes four main arguments in his concluding chapter, and each deserves careful attention.

First, Rillera rejects substitution because, as he puts it, substitution "by definition" means that Jesus died so that others will not have to. But the New Testament everywhere calls believers to take up their cross, to be co-crucified with Christ, to share in his sufferings. If substitution means Jesus died so we don't have to die, then calling us to die with him is incoherent. You cannot have it both ways—either Jesus died so we don't have to (substitution), or we are called to share in his death (participation). Rillera believes these two ideas cancel each other out.²

Second, Rillera invokes Simon Gathercole's own definition of substitution and turns it against the substitutionary view. Gathercole defines substitution as Christ "taking on consequences that its beneficiaries are thereby spared."³ But Rillera points out that in Romans 5–6, death is the current condition of humanity, not something they are "spared" from by Christ's death. Jesus enters the same condition of death that all humans already face. He does not take us out of death's domain by dying in our place; rather, he enters death's domain with us, goes through it ahead of us, and opens a path to resurrection life on the other side. On this reading, Gathercole's own criterion for substitution is not met.⁴

Third, Rillera offers what he considers a decisive argument: the "substitutionary resurrection" reductio ad absurdum. He reasons as follows: if the Greek preposition hyper ("for") is substitutionary when applied to Jesus's death, then it should also be substitutionary when applied to Jesus's resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 5:15, Paul writes that Jesus "died and was raised" hyper them—"for" them. If hyper means "instead of" for the death, then it must also mean "instead of" for the resurrection: Jesus rose so that we don't have to. But that is absurd—of course believers will also be raised! Therefore, Rillera argues, hyper cannot carry substitutionary force even when applied to Jesus's death. It simply means "for the benefit of" in both cases.⁵

Fourth, Rillera offers his alternative framework. Jesus's death is unique not because it is substitutionary but because it is a "pioneering" act that creates a participatory reality. Jesus dies ahead of us and with us, not instead of us. The best analogy, Rillera suggests, is a parent who rescues children from quicksand—the parent is a rescuer, not a substitute. Rillera also proposes that the relationship between Christ and believers is best understood as "solidarity and participation all the way down." He even reaches for a vivid (if jarring) metaphor: Christ is like a "cosmic voodoo doll" whose experience is inextricably bound up with the experience of those he represents.⁶

Rillera also engages specifically with Gathercole's exegesis of Romans 5:6–8. He argues that Gathercole's methodological error is seeking to interpret these verses through classical Greco-Roman parallels for vicarious death rather than attending to Paul's own co-text in Romans 5–8, which explicates a participatory, not substitutionary, logic. On Rillera's reading, whatever "room" there is for substitution in Romans 5:6–8 taken in isolation disappears once we read these verses within the larger argument of Romans 5–8, where Paul's logic is thoroughly participatory: believers die with Christ (Rom 6:3–8), their old self is crucified with him (6:6), and they are called to "consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (6:11).⁷

I want to acknowledge the force of Rillera's arguments. He is asking a genuine question: if Jesus is our substitute who does something so that we don't have to, why are we called to do it too? Any honest defender of substitutionary atonement needs to face this question head-on. Let me now try to do exactly that.

Section 2: The False Dichotomy — Substitution as the Foundation for Participation

This is the heart of the matter. Rillera's entire conclusion depends on treating substitution and participation as mutually exclusive categories—as rival explanations that cancel each other out. But I believe this either/or framing is fundamentally mistaken. The New Testament holds both together. And it does so not by awkwardly stitching two incompatible ideas side by side, but by presenting them as different dimensions of the same glorious reality, operating at different levels and addressing different problems.

The Logical Relationship: Different Dimensions, Not Competing Descriptions

Here is the key insight that Rillera's framework misses: substitution and participation are not competing descriptions of the same thing. They describe different dimensions of the same event. Substitution describes the objective accomplishment of the cross: Christ bore the judicial consequences of sin that we could not bear, securing forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Participation describes the subjective appropriation of the cross: believers are united to Christ by faith and the Spirit, and they share in the pattern, power, and reality of his death and resurrection in their daily lives.

The substitutionary act makes the participatory reality possible. Without substitution, there is nothing to participate in. If Christ's death accomplished nothing objective—if it merely modeled a pattern for us to follow—then our "participation" in his death would be nothing more than moral imitation. But Paul's participatory language is far richer than that. When Paul says we "died with Christ" (Rom 6:8) and were "crucified with him" (Gal 2:20), he is describing a real spiritual union with a person who accomplished something definitive by his death. The accomplishment is the substitution. The union is the participation. You need both.⁸

At the same time, substitution alone—without participation—would leave the cross external to us. A substitute who dies in our place but with whom we have no living connection would secure our acquittal but would not transform our lives. The New Testament insists on both: Christ for us (substitution) and Christ in us (participation). As John Stott put it so memorably, the cross is the place where God in Christ bore the penalty of our sin in our place—and it is also the place where we are drawn into living union with the crucified and risen Lord.⁹

The "Why Take Up the Cross?" Question

This is the question that drives Rillera's entire argument, and it deserves a clear and direct answer. If Jesus died as our substitute, why must we also die—take up our cross, be co-crucified with him, share in his sufferings?

The answer lies in recognizing that Jesus's substitutionary death and the believer's "co-crucifixion" address different problems. Jesus's substitutionary death addresses the judicial consequences of sin—the penalty of death, separation from God, the curse of the law. The believer's co-crucifixion addresses the experiential reality of dying to the power of sin in daily life—what theologians call sanctification, discipleship, and conformity to the image of Christ.

These are not the same "death." When Paul says in Romans 6:6 that "our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin," he is not talking about the same thing as when he says in Romans 5:8 that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 is about Christ bearing the consequences of our sin—the substitutionary dimension. Romans 6:6 is about believers dying to sin's power in their lives—the participatory dimension. Jesus bore the penalty of sin so we don't have to. But we are still called to die to sin's power in our lives, which is exactly what "co-crucifixion" means.¹⁰

Think of it this way. A prisoner on death row receives a full pardon because another person—voluntarily and out of love—has borne the sentence in his place. The prisoner is free. The judicial penalty has been paid by another. But the prisoner, now released, still has to learn to live as a free person. He has to put off the old habits, the old patterns of thinking, the old way of life that led to his crime. That daily process of transformation is not the same thing as bearing the judicial penalty. The substitute bore the penalty. The freed prisoner participates in a new life made possible by the substitute's act. Both realities are necessary, and they operate at different levels.¹¹

We can see this pattern at work directly in Paul's own letters. Consider Galatians 2:19–20, one of the most powerful statements of participatory theology in the entire New Testament: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Notice how Paul holds substitution and participation together in a single breath. The final clause—"who loved me and gave himself for me"—is substitutionary language: Christ gave himself in my place, on my behalf. But the opening clause—"I have been crucified with Christ"—is participatory language: I share in his death. Paul does not see any tension between these two statements. He moves from one to the other seamlessly, because for Paul, the substitutionary gift ("gave himself for me") is the foundation of the participatory reality ("crucified with Christ"). The "for me" makes the "with Christ" possible.³⁵

Or consider 2 Corinthians 5:14–15, a text Rillera himself engages at length: "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." Look at the logic carefully. "One has died for all"—that is substitution. Christ's death is a death for all. "Therefore all have died"—that is participation. Because Christ died for all, all are counted as having died with him. The substitution ("one has died for all") produces the participation ("therefore all have died"). The word "therefore" is doing enormous theological work here. It tells us that participation flows from substitution. It does not replace it.³⁶

Rillera's framework cannot adequately explain this "therefore." If Christ's death is only participatory—if he merely died ahead of us and with us—then the logical connection in 2 Corinthians 5:14 breaks down. Paul does not say "one has died ahead of all, therefore all will eventually die too." He says "one has died for all, therefore all have died." The universal scope of the death ("all have died") depends on the substitutionary character of the one death ("for all"). It is because Christ's death was in place of all that all can be counted as having died in him.

Scholarly Support for the Complementarity of Substitution and Participation

I am not alone in making this argument. A significant number of scholars have argued that substitution and participation, far from being rivals, are complementary and mutually reinforcing.

William Lane Craig, in his major work Atonement and the Death of Christ, argues at length that the participatory "in Christ" language of Paul presupposes the substitutionary act. Believers are "in Christ" precisely because Christ first stood "in their place." The union with Christ that Paul describes is a union with one who has already accomplished something definitive on their behalf. Craig notes that throughout Paul's letters, the indicative (what Christ has done for us) always grounds the imperative (what we are called to do with him). The substitutionary indicative is the foundation; the participatory imperative is the building erected on it.¹²

I. Howard Marshall, in Aspects of the Atonement, makes a closely related point. Marshall argues explicitly that the "in Christ" participatory framework in Paul presupposes the substitutionary act. Believers are united to Christ in his death and resurrection—but the death they are united to is a death that was itself substitutionary. If Christ's death were merely a shared experience and not a substitutionary achievement, there would be no basis for the transformative power that Paul attributes to union with Christ. Marshall writes that participation without substitution becomes mere solidarity with a fellow sufferer, whereas participation grounded in substitution becomes union with one who has conquered death on our behalf.¹³

Henri Blocher, in The Atonement, likewise argues that substitution and participation belong together as two inseparable aspects of the one saving event. Blocher insists that substitution is the "objective pole" and participation is the "subjective pole" of the same cross—and that collapsing either into the other distorts the biblical witness.¹⁴

Thomas Schreiner, in his work on the atonement, presses the same point: "The substitutionary work of Christ on the cross is not opposed to participatory language. Rather, believers participate in the death of Christ because he first died as their substitute. The 'with Christ' is grounded in the 'for us.'"¹⁵

Even Fleming Rutledge, who approaches the atonement from a more ecumenical perspective and who is cautious about some formulations of penal substitution, affirms the complementarity of substitution and participation. Rutledge writes that the cross involves "substitution, recapitulation, participation, and incorporation" and that these motifs should not be set against one another but woven together as complementary dimensions of one multifaceted event.¹⁶

Simon Gathercole himself addressed the specific objection that Rillera presses in a brief but important excursus in Defending Substitution. Gathercole acknowledges the question—if Christ died instead of us, why do believers still die?—and responds by distinguishing between different kinds of "death" in Paul. Believers do still "fall asleep" (physical death), but they are spared from the penal death that is "the wages of sin" (Rom 6:23). Christ's substitutionary death saves believers from death-as-divine-penalty, while believers still experience death-as-physical-transition (which Paul relativizes by calling it "sleep" or "departure to be with Christ"). This distinction is precisely the kind of "different levels" argument that Rillera's framework does not account for.¹⁷

The Quicksand Analogy Breaks Down

Rillera suggests that the best analogy for Jesus's saving work is a parent rescuing children from quicksand—a rescuer, not a substitute. But this analogy breaks down at precisely the point that matters most.

The parent in Rillera's analogy does not die in the process of rescuing the children. The parent reaches in, pulls the children out, and everyone goes home. But that is not what the New Testament says Jesus did. Jesus did not simply reach into death's domain and pull us out while remaining untouched. He entered death himself. He died. He plunged into the quicksand—and the quicksand swallowed him.

Now, if the parent did die—plunging into the quicksand and drowning so that the children could be pulled free—we would absolutely call that a substitutionary act. We would say, "The parent died in the children's place." We would say the parent gave his or her life so that the children could live. And that is exactly the logic the New Testament uses for Jesus's death. He died, entering the domain of death, so that through his death and resurrection, others could be freed from death's power (Heb 2:14–15). The analogy, when corrected to match what the New Testament actually describes, supports substitution rather than undermining it.¹⁸

Section 3: The "Substitutionary Resurrection" Reductio — Why It Fails

Rillera's cleverest argument is his "substitutionary resurrection" reductio. He reasons: if hyper is substitutionary for Jesus's death ("he died instead of us"), then it must also be substitutionary for Jesus's resurrection ("he rose instead of us"—that is, he rose so we don't have to). Since the latter is obviously absurd, the former must be wrong too.¹⁹

This argument is clever, but it does not work. Here is why.

The reductio assumes that hyper must carry the same semantic force in every occurrence, regardless of context. But prepositions are notoriously context-dependent in Greek (and in every language). The preposition hyper has a range of meanings, including "for the benefit of," "on behalf of," and "in place of." The specific nuance is determined by the context in which it appears, not by some fixed rule that applies uniformly across all uses.²⁰

In the context of Christ's death for sins, the substitutionary sense is natural because death-as-penalty is the kind of thing from which one can be spared by another's death. When someone dies in my place, I am spared from dying. That is how substitution works. But resurrection is not the kind of thing from which one needs to be "spared." Resurrection is a gift, not a penalty. No one needs to be rescued from resurrection. So the substitutionary sense of hyper is contextually appropriate for death (a penalty borne by another so that we are spared) but not for resurrection (a gift given for our benefit). The asymmetry between death and resurrection explains why hyper carries substitutionary force in one context but benefactive force in the other—without any inconsistency whatsoever.²¹

Furthermore, Paul's own logic actually confirms this distinction. In 1 Corinthians 15:17, Paul says, "If Christ has not been raised... you are still in your sins." Rillera cites this to argue that the resurrection (not the death) deals with sins. But this actually supports the substitutionary view of Christ's death rather than undermining it. How? Because the resurrection validates the substitutionary death. Christ's death dealt with sins—he bore them as our substitute. The resurrection confirms that the death was accepted by the Father, that the substitute's offering was sufficient. If there were no resurrection, the substitutionary death would not have accomplished its purpose—not because the death wasn't substitutionary, but because the resurrection is God's verdict that the substitution worked. As Paul puts it in Romans 4:25, Christ "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." Death and resurrection are not in competition; they are two stages of one saving act.²²

As I discussed more fully in Chapter 9, the preposition hyper is used alongside the stronger preposition anti (which unambiguously means "in place of," "instead of") in the New Testament's atonement vocabulary. Mark 10:45 uses anti: Jesus gives his life as "a ransom in place of [anti] many." The substitutionary force of the death-language is confirmed by anti, and hyper in death contexts carries the same substitutionary overtone. Rillera's insistence that hyper can never mean "instead of" is simply too rigid.²³

There is a further problem with the reductio that deserves mention. Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that hyper carries the same basic sense in both "he died for us" and "he was raised for us," the argument still fails. This is because "for us" need not mean "so that we don't have to" in every case. It can also mean "for our benefit, to our advantage"—and this meaning is perfectly compatible with substitution in the death-context. When Paul says Christ died hyper us, the context (dying for sins, bearing the curse, being "made sin") makes it clear that this is a death in our place, bearing what we would otherwise bear. When Paul says Christ was raised hyper us, the context (justification, new life, hope) makes it clear that this is a resurrection for our benefit, giving us what we could not attain on our own. The same preposition, the same basic "for us" meaning—but the specific nuance is shaped by the different realities of death and resurrection. Rillera's reductio works only if you flatten out all contextual nuance and insist on a mechanical, one-size-fits-all reading of the preposition. No competent Greek grammarian would endorse such an approach.⁴¹

Section 4: Rillera's Internal Tensions

Beyond the exegetical and logical arguments above, Rillera's own framework contains some significant internal tensions that deserve attention. I raise these not to score rhetorical points but because I think they reveal genuine weaknesses in the "participation only" position.

The Uniqueness Problem

Rillera repeatedly insists that Jesus's death is "soteriologically unique." He agrees that Jesus does something no one else can do—he creates a participatory reality that others can then enter. Jesus is the "pioneer," the "forerunner," the one who goes first and opens the way.²⁴

But here is the problem. If Jesus's death accomplishes something that only Jesus can do, and if that accomplishment benefits others who did not and could not do it themselves, then functionally this is substitution—even if Rillera refuses the word. When I say that Jesus "died as our substitute," I mean precisely this: he did something in our place that we could not do for ourselves, and the result is that we receive a benefit (forgiveness, reconciliation, new life) that was secured by his unique act. If Rillera agrees that Jesus's death is soteriologically unique—that it creates a reality no one else could create—and that others benefit from this reality without having created it themselves, then he has described substitution whether he uses the word or not.²⁵

This is precisely the kind of observation that Joshua McNall makes in The Mosaic of Atonement: when someone does something unique on behalf of others, from which those others benefit but which they could not have accomplished on their own, the logic is substitutionary even if the language avoids the word. The denial of the label does not eliminate the reality.²⁶

Consider a concrete example. Imagine a scientist who develops a life-saving vaccine. No one else could have made it—the scientist's unique expertise was required. Everyone who receives the vaccine benefits from the scientist's unique achievement. Now, do the recipients "participate" in the ongoing work of science? In a sense, yes—they live healthier lives and contribute to the scientific community. But do they need a substitute to create the vaccine for them? Absolutely. The scientist did something in their place that they could not do for themselves, and then they participated in the benefits. Rillera's Jesus is similarly unique—he alone creates the saving reality. But Rillera refuses to call this substitution. I think the word fits perfectly, and refusing to use it only creates confusion about what is actually happening.

The "Cosmic Voodoo Doll" Metaphor

One of the most striking moments in Rillera's book comes when he admits he has "struggled to find a better analogy" and settles on the metaphor of Christ as a "cosmic voodoo doll." By this, he means to convey the inextricable union between Christ's experience and the experience of those he represents—what happens to Christ happens to those in him, and vice versa.²⁷

But I confess I find this metaphor almost comically self-defeating for Rillera's argument. A voodoo doll is the quintessential image of substitution. The entire point of a voodoo doll is that what happens to the doll happens in place of what would otherwise happen to the person it represents. The doll stands in for the person. It is a substitute. If you stick a pin in the doll, the person feels it—precisely because the doll is taking the place of the person in the ritual act.

Now, Rillera intends the metaphor to communicate participation—the idea that Christ's experience and ours are bound together. And I agree that participation is a genuine dimension of the metaphor. But the metaphor also unavoidably communicates substitution: the doll does something in the place of the represented person. By choosing this analogy, Rillera has unwittingly illustrated the very logic he wants to deny. The metaphor undermines his anti-substitutionary argument from within.

Gathercole's Definition and the Complexity of Romans 5–6

Rillera argues that in Romans 5–6, death is humanity's current condition—not a future penalty from which Christ's death spares us. Therefore, Gathercole's criterion for substitution (Christ taking on consequences that its beneficiaries are spared) is not met. Jesus enters the same condition of death that already afflicts humanity. He does not bear a penalty instead of us; he enters our condition with us.²⁸

But Paul's argument in Romans is more complex than Rillera acknowledges. In Paul's theology, death is both a current condition (the "reign" of death, Rom 5:14, 17) and a future outcome or penalty ("the wages of sin is death," Rom 6:23). Death operates at multiple levels in Romans: it is a power that currently reigns over humanity (5:14, 17, 21), and it is the judicial penalty for sin (1:32; 6:23; 8:13). Christ's death addresses both dimensions. His substitutionary death deals with death-as-penalty (the judicial consequence of sin). His solidarity and participation address death-as-power (the enslaving dominion of sin and death from which humanity needs liberation).²⁹

The participatory language of Romans 6 (dying with Christ) does not replace the substitutionary language of Romans 5 (Christ dying for the ungodly while they were still sinners, 5:6–8). Romans 5 and Romans 6 are complementary, not in tension. Romans 5:6–8 establishes the objective accomplishment: Christ died for us while we were helpless, ungodly sinners. Romans 6:3–11 describes the subjective appropriation: believers, united to Christ by faith and baptism, share in his death to sin and his resurrection to new life. The "for us" of Romans 5 is the ground of the "with him" of Romans 6. You cannot have Romans 6 without Romans 5.³⁰

Notice, too, the language Paul uses in Romans 5:6–8 itself. Christ died "for the ungodly" (5:6), "for us" while we were "still sinners" (5:8). The emphasis on the unworthiness and helplessness of the beneficiaries is the hallmark of substitution, not mere solidarity. In solidarity, two parties share the same experience together. But Paul does not depict Jesus and sinners sharing the same experience. He depicts a righteous one acting for the unrighteous, a strong one acting for the helpless. Paul's very comparison with rare cases of human self-sacrifice in 5:7 ("scarcely for a righteous person would one die—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die") only makes sense if Christ's death is a vicarious act of dying in place of others. The classical parallels Paul evokes are cases of one person dying instead of another—not cases of one person dying alongside another. Rillera objects that Gathercole should not have looked to classical parallels for interpretation. But Paul himself introduces the comparison! The Greco-Roman tradition of vicarious death is relevant precisely because Paul invites the comparison in Romans 5:7.³⁷

Furthermore, the structure of Romans 5:12–21 depends on an Adam-Christ parallel that is fundamentally substitutionary. Just as Adam's one act of disobedience brought condemnation and death to all humanity, so Christ's one act of obedience brings justification and life to all who are in him. The "one for the many" structure—one person's act determining the destiny of many—is the very definition of representational substitution. Adam acted for all humanity (and all humanity suffered the consequences); Christ acted for all humanity (and all who believe receive the benefit). Rillera's attempt to read Romans 5 as purely participatory cannot account for this representative structure, which presupposes that one person stands in the place of many and acts on their behalf.³⁸

Section 5: What Is Lost When Substitution Is Abandoned

Rillera wants to abandon the language of substitution entirely. He proposes that we speak only of solidarity, participation, union, and co-crucifixion. I believe this proposal, however well-intentioned, comes at a significant theological cost. Let me briefly describe three things that are at risk when substitution is removed from the picture.

The Gratuity of Grace

Substitution preserves the one-sided, gratuitous character of the gospel in a way that participation language alone cannot. The heart of substitution is this: Christ does something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. He bears the consequences of our sin. He secures our forgiveness. He accomplishes our reconciliation with God. And he does all of this while we are "still sinners" (Rom 5:8), "ungodly" (5:6), "enemies" (5:10). We contribute nothing. We simply receive.

When substitution is collapsed entirely into participation, there is a subtle but real risk that salvation becomes something we accomplish—by participating, by taking up the cross, by co-crucifying ourselves with Christ—rather than something we receive as a gift because another has done it in our place. Rillera would certainly not intend this conclusion, and his emphasis on Jesus's "soteriological uniqueness" is meant to guard against it. But the logic of pure participation, without a substitutionary foundation, tends in this direction. If Jesus did not die instead of me, but only ahead of me and with me, then the weight of the saving act begins to shift from what Christ accomplished to what I must do in response. The gospel becomes less about "it is finished" (John 19:30) and more about "now it is your turn."³¹

The Justice of God

Without a substitutionary framework, it becomes very difficult to explain how the judicial problem of sin—the fact that sin deserves consequences—is addressed at the cross. Rillera's framework emphasizes solidarity and liberation, and these are genuinely important themes. But they struggle to account for the Pauline insistence that God is "both just and the justifier" of those who have faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26).

How is God just in forgiving sin? If sin simply goes unaddressed—if the consequences are simply overlooked—then God's justice is compromised. Paul clearly felt the force of this question, because Romans 3:25–26 is precisely about demonstrating God's righteousness in the face of his "passing over" of former sins. The substitutionary answer is clear and coherent: the judicial consequences of sin have been borne by another. God is just because the penalty has been paid; he is the justifier because he freely offers forgiveness to all who trust in Christ. Without substitution, Rillera's framework has no clear mechanism for answering Paul's question about how God can be both just and the justifier.³²

The Pastoral Power of the Cross

For the struggling believer weighed down by guilt—the person who lies awake at night wondering whether God can really forgive what they have done—the message "Jesus died in your place, bearing your sins" is profoundly liberating. It meets the guilty conscience with the good news that the judicial problem has been handled, completely and forever, by another. The penalty is paid. The record is clean. There is "no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1).

The message "Jesus died ahead of you, showing you the way to participate in his death" is inspiring, even beautiful—but it offers less comfort to the guilty conscience. It tells me what I must do (participate, follow, take up my cross) rather than what has been done for me (my sins have been borne by another). Substitution addresses the guilt problem. Participation addresses the power problem. Both are needed. But when substitution is removed, the guilt problem goes unanswered, and the gospel loses much of its pastoral power for the broken and the burdened. As I discuss more fully in Chapter 37, a robust substitutionary atonement is the beating heart of Christian worship, assurance, and freedom.³³

Martin Luther understood this with characteristic clarity. Luther's breakthrough came not from discovering a participatory framework—though participation is richly present in his theology—but from realizing that Christ had stood in his place. Luther's famous language of the "great exchange" (admirabile commercium) holds substitution and participation together perfectly: Christ takes our sin; we receive his righteousness. But the order matters. Christ first takes what is ours (substitution), and only then do we receive what is his (participation). Luther's pastoral genius was to direct anxious consciences not to their own efforts at co-crucifixion but to the finished work of the one who had already borne their sin. "Look at Christ on the cross," Luther would say in effect, "and know that he hangs there for you, in your place, bearing your sin." That is the message that breaks the power of guilt—and it is a message that requires substitution.³⁹

Karl Barth, who is sometimes claimed by anti-substitutionary theologians, made a remarkably similar point. Barth insisted that Christ's death is not merely an example of obedience or a pattern for us to follow. It is, first and foremost, something done in our place—a vicarious act in which the Son of God bore the judgment that rightly fell on us. Only because Christ has done this for us are we set free to live with him. Barth wrote that Christ's "suffering in our place and for us" is what accomplished our reconciliation with God. Rillera's framework, which effectively removes the "in our place" language, would have been unacceptable to Barth no less than to Luther.⁴⁰

Section 6: Conclusion — Place-Taking and Place-Sharing Together

We have now examined Rillera's case from every angle—his core argument, his substitutionary resurrection reductio, and his internal tensions—and I believe the evidence points clearly in one direction: the New Testament does not ask us to choose between substitution and participation. It holds them together as complementary dimensions of the one saving act of God in Christ.

Rillera's preferred phrase is "place-sharing, not place-taking." I would like to reframe it: place-taking that enables place-sharing. Jesus first takes our place (substitution)—bearing the judicial consequences of our sin, dying the death that we deserved, enduring the curse that rested on us. And then, having taken our place, he gives us a share in his place (participation)—uniting us to himself by faith and the Spirit, so that his death becomes our death to sin, his resurrection becomes our resurrection to new life, and his righteousness becomes ours.

This is the pattern of the gospel throughout the New Testament. Christ first does something unique and unrepeatable for us, and then invites us into living union with him. The "for us" always comes first. The "with him" always follows. And the "with him" is possible only because of the "for us."

It is worth noting that Rillera himself, perhaps unintentionally, points toward this complementary framework when he uses the language of recapitulation drawn from Irenaeus via Ephesians 1:10. Rillera suggests that "recapitulation" is a better term than "substitution" for what Jesus accomplishes. But recapitulation, as Irenaeus himself understood it, presupposes a representative and substitutionary structure. Christ recapitulates humanity's story—he goes back through every stage of human existence and "does it right" where Adam failed—precisely because he stands in our place as our representative head. He recapitulates for us what we could not do for ourselves. The recapitulation is substitutionary at its core: Christ, in our place, relives and redeems the human story. As I argued in Chapter 23, recapitulation and substitution are not alternatives; recapitulation is one of the ways substitution works. And as I discussed in Chapter 28, the concepts of representation, federal headship, and corporate solidarity all depend on the same underlying logic: one person standing in the place of many, doing for them what they cannot do for themselves.³⁴

This is why the history of Christian theology, across all its major traditions, has never been willing to let go of substitutionary language—even when it has rightly insisted on enriching that language with participatory, liberative, and victorious themes. The Church Fathers held substitution and recapitulation together. The medieval theologians held substitution and satisfaction together. The Reformers held substitution and justification together. The Eastern Orthodox tradition, even in its strongest emphasis on theosis and participation, has never entirely abandoned the language of Christ bearing our sins and dying in our place (as demonstrated in Chapter 15 and Chapter 34 of this book). The reason is simple: the New Testament itself holds these dimensions together, and the church has always sensed, even when it could not always articulate the precise relationship, that abandoning substitution would mean losing something essential about the gospel.

Let me close with an irenic word of appreciation. Rillera's emphasis on participation, co-crucifixion, and the ethical implications of the cross is not wrong. It is genuinely important, and it is too often neglected by advocates of substitutionary atonement. Rillera is right that the cross calls us to a way of life—that it is not merely a transaction that leaves us unchanged but a reality that transforms every dimension of our existence. He is right that Paul's participatory language is rich, pervasive, and theologically significant. He is right that believers are called to share in Christ's sufferings and to be conformed to the pattern of his death and resurrection.

The error is not in what Rillera affirms but in what he denies. His affirmation of participation is welcome and needed. His denial of substitution is, I believe, a mistake—one that leaves the gospel without its objective foundation, strips the cross of its power to address the judicial problem of sin, and ultimately makes the good news less good than it truly is.

The fullness of the gospel requires both dimensions: Christ in our place, and we in Christ. Place-taking and place-sharing, together, forever.

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