The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death
Andrew Remington Rillera
Cascade (2024). 325 pp.
Andrew Rillera’s Lamb of the Free is an ambitious monograph seeking to prove that a substitutionary account of Jesus’s death is nowhere to be found in the NT. At the outset (pp. 1–8), Rillera situates his monograph within the broader project of dismantling the theology of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). Rillera, as a former pastor, a practicing Anglican, and an NT professor, sets the stakes high: substitutionary understandings of atonement are damaging to cruciform discipleship (p. 8). Rillera’s bold thesis invites a robust critique, and his appeal to his Christian identity calls for respectful dialogue. As a fellow Anglican NT professor, I will strive to deliver both in this review.
In Chapters 1–2, Rillera draws from the insights of Jacob Milgrom and delineates three categories of Levitical sacrifices: 1) atoning sacrifices (kipper), which purify the tabernacle by the lifeblood (not the death) of the animal, 2) non-atoning burnt offerings which attract God’s presence, and 3) non-atoning well-being offerings which constitute a sacred feast shared by God and the people. According to Rillera, the Passover was a non-substitutionary well-being offering that commemorated God’s act of deliverance. In Chapters 3–4, Rillera demonstrates how kipper sacrifices, culminating in the Day of Atonement, could never atone for the grave sins of high-handed covenant-breaking; only an extra-Temple source could provide forgiveness for such sin. Time, exile, water-washing, and covenant renewal are the only means for such forgiveness (pp. 131–49; cf. pp. 84–87). Building on this OT background, Rillera spends Chapters 5–7 arguing the following points from the NT: 1) Jesus’s death was not a kipper sacrifice in the Levitical sense; 2) Jesus’s death was a non-substitutionary, covenant establishing, moral purification modeled after the Passover; and 3) Jesus did not suffer death instead of the people, rather, he entered into suffering and death in corporate solidarity with his people, inviting them to follow after him in cruciform discipleship.
Rillera’s insistence on the absence of salvific substitution in the NT leaves several lacunae. The most significant is John 11:47–53, which quite clearly establishes Jesus’s vicarious death for the nation of Israel and the scattered children of God. This is crucial, because the fourth evangelist connects the grammar of substitutionary death in 11:47–53 with the Passover in 11:55–57. This strongly implies that the paschal Lamb’s removal of sin in John 1:29 is through substitutionary death—something Rillera denies (pp. 193–97). Even more, the grammar of John 11:52 closely parallels 1 John 2:2. This parallel, contrary to Rillera (pp. 210–21), establishes the hilasmos as a substitutionary reality. Similarly, Rillera does not consider the syntax of the Greek preposition anti in the ransom sayings (pp. 249–53). Rillera does not address how the exchange implied in the preposition anti—“to give his life (psyche) as a ransom for (anti) many”—requires a substitution of some kind. One might consider how Athanasius’s On the Incarnation develops the anti grammar of substitution, to the point of using the word antipsychon for “substitute” (paralleling the logic of Mark 10:45).
A study attempting to refute PSA needs to explain why biblical texts that discuss God’s wrath allegedly do not support the notion of propitiation. Unfortunately, Rillera assumes that God’s wrath is not mentioned whenever hilasterion, hilasmos, or hilaskomai are used in the NT (pp. 210–15, 259–71). This assumption ignores the important contexts surrounding Rom 3:25 and 1 John 4:10 (esp. 4:17–18), where God’s wrath and eschatological judgment/ punishment for sin contribute to the logic of propitiation. Incidentally, Rillera’s explanation of hilasterion in Rom 3:25 appeals to Greco-Roman parallels (votive offerings) while minimizing the context of Rom 1:18–4:25 (p. 268), the exact exegetical move Rillera criticizes when disagreeing with Simon Gathercole’s interpretation of Rom 5:6–11 (p. 280). If one applies the Greco-Roman parallels of Rillera and Gathercole and interprets their significance within the co-texts of Romans 1–8, then one sees the loving self-substitution of the God who abolishes enmity and reconciles humanity to himself by offering the judgment-averting hilasterion in Rom 3:25 and the wrath-averting blood in Rom 5:9.
It is also unfortunate that Rillera’s analysis does not include a detailed exegesis of Isa 52:13–53:12; Rillera only gives an overview of this passage’s reception in non-substitutionary Jewish and Christian interpretations (pp. 243–49). The substitutionary logic of Isa 53:4–12, specifically as an extra-Levitical, sacrificial death, is exactly the logic at play in Heb 9:27–28. In this context and co-text it is clear that Christ’s once-for-all bearing of others’ sins satisfies the covenantal curse of judgment their sins deserved (Heb 9:27; 10:26–31; 6:7–8).
Rillera is convinced that participation is mutually exclusive with substitution. According to Rillera, if Christ died instead of us then we have no reason to die with Christ (pp. 273–76). But this presupposes a false dichotomy. To appeal again to Athanasius, Christ’s death as our substitute accomplished what our deaths could never accomplish—the fulfillment of the condemnation that God’s law demanded for humanity’s transgressions (On the Incarnation 3–10, 20, 37). Because Christ’s substitutionary death has removed the curse of condemnation, Christians can now participate in Christ’s death in the hope of perfected resurrection rather than in the fear of perdition (On the Incarnation 10, 21). This coordination of substitution with participation lies at the heart of the gospel.
Rillera’s book successfully demonstrates how the Levitical kipper sacrifices do not provide the grammar for PSA. It also skillfully showcases the participatory facets of Christ’s death. These two features make the book a must-read for students, pastors, and scholars who want to nuance their understanding of atonement theology. This book, however, has not succeeded in dismantling the theology of Christ’s vicarious, salvific death.
Jacob A. Rodriguez (DPhil, University of Oxford) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA. He is a member of the St. Hildegard Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
