Jeremy Treat on the Transformative Power of the Atonement

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Collin Hansen
Well, the Gospel brings many benefits. We think about forgiveness, about victory, about redemption, and all kinds of other benefits. But the greatest benefit of the gospel is, of course, God himself. The cross removes the barrier that separates sinners from God. And the cross restores the relationship broken with our Creator by our sin. This is the meaning of the Atonement, the cross who is very shape points to its purpose, the vertical beam symbolizing our reconciliation with God. And of course, the horizontal beam that shows how Christ’s sacrifice reconciles us with one another. You’ll learn this and more from Jeremy treat in his new book, The Atonement and introduction. Part of the short studies and systematic theology series for crossway will treat lives in Los Angeles, California, where he is the pastor for preaching envision at reality LA, a church with 115 Different nations represented here and his PhD from Wheaton College and serves as an adjunct professor of theology at Biola University and as a fellow, together with me at the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics at the gospel coalition. And now we’re talking here at Besian Divinity School where he’s just been delivering our congar lectures in preaching, and which really been dimin. Delightful. You’re going to find this book by Jeremy both moving and helpful, and I especially love the way he shows the atonement as up ending the expectations of the world. Here’s a quote that gives you a flavor for it. Jeremy writes, Herein lies the paradox of the Gospel, the self giving love of God, transformed an instrument of death into an instrument of life. That crosses the great reversal where exultation comes through humiliation, glory is revealed and shame. Victory is accomplished through surrender. And the triumph for the kingdom comes from the suffering of the servant. And quote, and now Jeremy joins me on gospel bound to discuss no one of his favorite themes, the kingdom and cross as well as many others. Jeremy, thanks for being here.

Jeremy Treat
Thanks for having me.

Collin Hansen
Well, you’re right that the cross is the crowning achievement of Christ’s kingdom mission. But you’ve heard the same thing. I’ve heard all kinds of debates about whether Christ came to die on the cross, or whether he came to inaugurate the kingdom. Alright, Jeremy wants you to answer that little question for us. Which one, is it?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is a question I wrestled with a lot. Because in my experience, you have one crowd that’s all about the cross, and another crowd that’s all about the kingdom. And it’s usually one to the exclusion of the other. And when I look to Scripture, I see that you can’t understand the kingdom apart from the cross and you can’t understand the cross apart from the kingdom. And it’s Christ Himself who holds those together. He is the King who goes to the cross in establishing his kingdom and ransoming us into it. So I think as you see those things come together. I mean, it’s just at the heart of the biblical story. It’s weaved in all throughout it. And then of course, it culminates at the cross, where you see Christ being in throne as king. I mean, at one level, from a perspective, from a worldly perspective. It’s a man being executed, he’s losing shame. And yet through the lens of faith, its power, its wisdom, its victory. The kingdom of God is coming through the crucifixion of Christ.

Collin Hansen
Another thing you write that, quote, Christ brings the kingdom in a way that subverts the world’s expectations, and yet fulfills humanity’s deepest desires. In this kingdom, the throne is a cross in the king reigns with mercy and grace. One of the things I love about this book is that you’re writing it as a local church pastor. What does that subversion look like in the context of Ministry of local church?

Jeremy Treat
I mean, I think the the paradox of the cross is the foundation for this mustard seed principle that you see throughout Scripture. It’s it’s that the mustard seeds not impressive and yet it grows to be the biggest plant right where the birds can come and take shade. And it’s the the meek shall inherit the earth. It’s the compassion or it’s the it’s the outcasts who are brought in. I mean, you’re constantly seeing this paradoxical community. I mean, that’s what the Beatitudes give us a vision of, but that’s just not like a good idea. Like let’s just flip things around. No, it’s the cross that flips the values of the world on its head, and says no the meek inherit the earth. The weak are actually wrong, the outcasts are brought in. So it’s a beautiful vision of community. Again, like I said in the book that it’s, it’s different than people expect, but it’s everything that they hoped for.

Collin Hansen
Do you think it’s hard to understand that dynamic of subversion, in part because the Christian revolution has been so successful? Because in some level, I think a lot of people hear that and they say, right, we should honor even the weak, we should care for one another. Is there something lost that sort of the radical nature of the cross?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, 100%. I mean, the thing, people, most secular people today, who would say, yeah, it’s obvious, like everyone believes you should have compassion for the week. Like, you’d want to respond with saying, well, the Romans didn’t like, they, they would just kill people who are weak, they would dismiss people who held them back from whatever they were trying to achieve. So in some ways, we have to show people that they are. They’re experiencing a reality that’s built on foundational Christian truths. And they’re drawing from that. And you know, there’s people who have done this, of course, Tom Holland, his book, Dominion has been so important, but Andrew Wilson, Glen Scrivener, I mean, they’ve done a great job of helping people see how much even our secular society has drawn from biblical ideas. And this This in particular, I mean, this idea of, yeah, caring for the weak in the equality of all people. These, these were not those, those are ideas that not only other people didn’t believe they believe the opposite of it, they built society around the fact that people are not equal, and that you should not care for people who are hurting, you should discard of them.

Collin Hansen
Not only that was the exact situation that Jesus himself was in. Yeah, they did not put Him to the cross. I mean, they weren’t threatened at some level by him, but they were able to do so. Because he was not in power. Because he was weak. He was not part of the religious establishment or political establishment. Yeah.

Jeremy Treat
When you can see the way people responded to him, right? When he goes and cares for the outcasts. They’re not saying, Wow, what a loving guy. Right? They’re like the Pharisees are saying, What are you doing hanging out with those people? Now we need to kill you. Yeah. And his disciples are saying, Why are you talking to that woman, a Samaritan woman? Right? So people were shocked by what he did. They didn’t see it as a good thing. Now, we can look back on that and see it, but it’s ultimately because of the influence of Christ.

Collin Hansen
What is the relationship between substitution and other so called theories of atonement?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, I mean, you got we got to be careful with our language here. Because you get these different theories that people make of the Atonement you have, you know, penal substitution Christus, Victor moral example, all these other ones? I don’t I actually, one of the things I say in the book is, I think the theory approach is off. It’s not even a good way of starting the conversation.

Collin Hansen
Is it because it just makes it feel like you can just pick and choose which theory you prefer, or which one resonates with you?

Jeremy Treat
Well, the reason that this came about was nobody used theory language for atonement, until the mid 1800s. And I mean, before that, nobody’s saying there’s this theory, and it’s nothing else is true outside of and you have to choose these exclusive ID mutually exclusive ideas, where you have happening in the 1800s. In the development of the universities, in light of the Enlightenment, you have religion departments, and Christians trying to fit in and university systems and borrowing language from other fields. And they start talking about theories of atonement. And then and then what happens over time, is you have these pendulum swinging debates of Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God, no, he didn’t, he died to defeat the devil, and then ends up being this either or, We’re scripture presents a both.

And so that’s where like the theory approach in general, I just don’t even think it’s helpful. It invites us to choose between biblical truths, where we should be embracing the tension of those truths. So what I what I prefer to do is talk about dimensions of the Atonement, you have victory, you have satisfaction, you have all the adoption, you healing. And then to be able to say, substitution is not just another dimension of what Christ accomplished. It’s at the center that gives meaning it’s the how of, of all that he accomplishes in in all of those various dimensions. So substitution isn’t just another aspect. It’s its core, its heart. And I mean, I use heart not just didn’t like it’s most important, but thinking about how heart works, it pumps blood into the body, it’s connecting everything and giving meaning to it.

Collin Hansen
And one of the things that Tim Keller would often says that all love at some level is substitutionary. You know that really that’s not just an aspect but it’s an essential aspect of of love in a number of different ways. Why is God’s triune nature essential for understanding substitutionary atonement?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, this is so important because if we don’t have a good doctrine of the Trinity going into the atonement, then we’re going to go into all kinds of errors that Christians have slipped into where you, you essentially end up pitting Jesus against the father. And so I think about the classic railroad tracks illustration, which like my generation, if you grew up in like evangelicalism, you heard it, that you know, the father’s the the railroad conductor, and the sons playing in the tracks. And he looks down and this trains coming. So we asked to make the decision, you know, do I do I shift the gears and sacrifice my son to save all the people? Or do I let the train go off the tracks and save my son, and so he sacrifices his son to save the people. The problem with that illustration, as much as it communicates, the idea of sacrifice, is that the Son in that illustration is blindsided, he doesn’t know what’s happening, all of a sudden, he’s just crushed by train tracks. He didn’t, he’s not voluntarily submitting himself to that. And the father is doing what he’s doing, not necessarily out of love, but more of a utilitarian principle of I’m gonna save the many instead of the one. So you have illustrations like that, that lead people to this idea of it’s the father against the Son, and the father has to kill the son to save the money. And again, there’s elements of truth in that, but you put it in the wrong story. Whereas in Scripture, we see Jesus and the Father are one and have one purpose. And Jesus isn’t blindsided, he’s voluntarily submitting himself out of love to save people. And so And yes, the father is angry towards sin, but so is the Son, and the son is loving, but so is the Father. So we really need to see the atonement as the apex of a truth of the Trinitarian mission of God.

Collin Hansen
Let me toss out a few specific examples. And you can address these, do you have a problem with a singing that the father turned his face away?

Jeremy Treat
I don’t. But I think you need good, like theology around that. So I like the way that Fred Sanders talked about this. He said, if, if you have a good understanding of who God is, and sin and the doctrine of the Trinity, like you can sing that song, in a sense, that understands what that means. Even Jesus crying out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Like, there’s something there. Like, we need to understand that light of Psalm 22. We need to understand it and light at the end of Psalm 22. And the relation of the Father and the Son. But no, I can definitely sing that wholeheartedly.

Collin Hansen
So I was gonna then toss out a few other terms, forsaken is one of them, it seems we that’s pretty close to the biblical text there in Psalm 22, that Jesus is invoking. What are some other language that we could use? Or should not use? I mean, abandon or divided? Or how would you recommend us this is, especially for those of us who are preaching, yeah, that’s where a lot of this comes out. And there’s a lot of rhetorical flourish that you can inject into this situation when you’re preaching a Good Friday Sermon, or a general if message about the extent to which Jesus suffered for our, for our sake, and because of us, baring our sins. So just give us a little bit more recommendation of things. Maybe we could say, or maybe that we should avoid saying,

Jeremy Treat
I think the we want to avoid the language of like a broken Trinity. Yeah, this idea that like, for three days, you know, God wasn’t God. Where the father and the son were against each other for three days for us, I think anything like that, like we need to avoid that type of language. I also just the way I try and preach of it is I think of Second Corinthians five, God in Christ is reconciling the world to themselves good. So even with language of forsaken Enos or like any of that I just try and frame it with in that sense of Christ took on our first sacredness, but it’s God in Christ doing that. Yeah, I mean, John Stott talks about the self substitution of God in Christ. And we constantly need that language to remember that when we’re talking about Jesus, that he’s the son who’s empowered by the Spirit and sent by the Father. That gives us that broader framework that’s necessary.

Collin Hansen
Another thing I love about this book is that you have a preacher’s ability to, to share in the beginning, communicate memorable lines. Even while you’re doing some serious theology here, it books again, just full of these lines of I’ve shared a number of them already with with others. But one of them is you say the cross is the apex of the Incarnate Christ’s mission, very clear and compelling. But I’m wondering, why wouldn’t the apex of his mission be his teaching? Or why wouldn’t the apex of his mission be his example of loving your enemy?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, well, let me say this, I would never want to set those things up against each other as if it’s like, because the cross matters is teaching doesn’t matter, okay? Or like when you get into like, what’s more important, the death or resurrection of Jesus? Like, it’s not a helpful way of approaching? That’s not what you’re doing? Because you’re asking, what’s the apex? I’m just using your word. Yeah. But But I want to be, I want to be clear on that of, of talking about the centrality of the cross, what is the apex of the story? It doesn’t minimize the other aspects of his ministry, I think it actually puts them in perspective. And the cross means nothing apart from the life of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. And so I think that the reason I would lean towards the centrality of the cross, I mean, there’s multiple things with this.

One is when you’re looking at the Gospels, I mean, the gospel of Mark spends half of the gospel on the last week of his life, right? So there’s a sense of, this is the part of the movie where you slow down and zoom in, and everything’s leading up to that. So I think the way that the gospel is presented, I think that the way that the rest of the New Testament have not just Paul, and of course, Paul’s emphasizing the resurrection, too, but I think the Cross and Resurrection are doing different things. But the way Paul is doing that, for Paul, to be able to say we preach Christ and Him crucified. Like he’s encapsulating everything in that phrase, but from that to the book of Hebrews, I just think there’s an emphasis on the cross. And that being a saint has the explanatory power of dealing with sin. And that theologically, I think, is really important.

Collin Hansen
So you’re sitting in a small group or a Sunday school, you’re not the one teaching somebody else’s teaching in your church, and they say, Jesus came to die. Do you feel like you need to correct that at all? Or add context to that? Or do you say, no, absolutely. That’s exactly right. Or do you have to say, well, he also came to fulfill the, you know, whatever, he wants the mission of God and the people of Israel. I mean, how do you? What do you what do you do in that moment?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the context. And if I feel like they’re saying it, in a way to minimize other things, if someone’s talking about the Incarnation, they’re like, well, well, well, Jesus came to die, then it’s like, hold on.

Collin Hansen
Like, as if the Incarnation were only a way to get him a physical body that he could sacrifice?

Jeremy Treat
Right. But it’s like, but if they’re just making that point in general, I have no problem with that. I think it’s true. And that’s what Athanasius argued, in his book called on the Incarnation, that Jesus came to die. And he needed to take on a human body and able to do that. So I, yeah, I don’t I don’t have any problem with that. As long as it’s not used as a way of minimizing or dismissing the other aspects of Christ.

Collin Hansen
I’m trying to, I’m trying to you you do such a good job of bringing these things together of reconciling these things. But I’m not sure how many people watching or listening, always know the way these are often pitted against each other the way it’s, no, we’re a red letter church where we focus on the things Jesus said, and we follow that, versus all those black letter churches that focus on his death, or things like that, or we’re, we’re Jesus Christians, we’re not Pauline, Christians, or things like that. So and a lot of that happens, not just at an academic level, but a very popular level. So some people watching listen, they may be familiar with that, but but I think that’s one reason your book is so helpful is because it it shows that all these things cohere in God’s redemptive plan, and they shouldn’t be pitted against each other even as we might describe some things as an apex without saying that nothing else matters. The cross is shameful humiliation. It’s an important theme in your book. What do you think that theme of shameful humiliation is, is hard for some of us at least, to see an understanding the West?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, well, I think I mean, the the West is a is a context that’s more guilt driven and shame driven. Every society has both of those. It’s just a part of basic anthropology. But we live in an individualistic society that leans more towards guilt, and the Bible was written in a very communal society. That’s an honor and shame oriented. So we just miss it, we we often don’t see it we read, you know, we read the Bible, and we assume it’s it’s saying something to the individual, or it’s often written to the community, we miss. And we miss really obvious things about shame because it doesn’t necessarily use the word shame. So an example of this is the Gospels present Christ’s death on the cross as burying our shame. I mean, that is one of the if not the predominant theme in what Jesus is accomplishing on the cross. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, don’t say Jesus is bearing our shame.

But it’s so obvious in the way that they tell the story. I mean, think about this, like, in our context, like if you grew up in the church, what do you hear about the cross the physical pain of Jesus, right? Like I grew up, or watched The Passion of the Christ. I heard I heard, preachers constantly talking about how it must have felt for his his raw skin to be scraping against the cross and the nails going through the arteries. Check this out. The gospels never mentioned the physical pain of the cross. They don’t talk about it at all. Like it’s not even on the radar. Now, that doesn’t minimize it. Of course, the the physical pain of the cross was real. But all of the emphasis in the Gospels is on the shame, the public shame of the cross, Jesus is stripped naked, he’s mocked by those who are passing by. They’re saying, why don’t you come down if you’re a savior, there, he’s crowded. It’s all mockery of the sign that says King of the Jews. They’re making fun of him they’re trying to publicly humiliate.

Collin Hansen
The cross itself was first designed for shame.

Jeremy Treat
Yes. I mean, if they wanted to just get rid of Jesus, they could have beheaded him. They could have burned them at the state quickly.

Collin Hansen
There’s other ways that to inflict physical pain. Yeah, as well. That was a very physical, physically painful thing. But it didn’t have to be public. It could have tortured him for a lot longer in different ways.

Jeremy Treat
And crucifixion is it’s it’s literally a slow, torturous death. And it’s naked. Yeah, all sorts so so they’re saying through narrative, that Jesus is bearing our shame. And, and that doesn’t, that doesn’t, doesn’t create a false dichotomy with shame and guilt. He’s clearly bearing our guilt as well. And the and the Epistles tease that out a lot. But they also build, tease out shame in ways that we just miss. I mean, I think of like, Romans 323, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Like that’s like the Go to verse when you’re talking about sin. That’s an honor and shame type of framework, like honor and shame, the glory of God is honor, we’ve fallen short of that we’re in shame. So there’s just a lot about shame that we miss, because we don’t think that way in our society.

Collin Hansen
When Peter denied Jesus three times, was he ashamed or guilty?

Jeremy Treat
Well, I would say both.

Collin Hansen
And he was clearly ashamed to be associated right with Jesus, right. And I think the emphasis there on the servant girl seems to contrast that if he’s, he’s ashamed to be associated with Jesus, His accent, marks him out. It’s a servant girl that he’s denying himself to. But then maybe perhaps afterward, he feels guilty, because of what he’s done to his friend.

Jeremy Treat
Sure, and probably felt a shame to and even when Jesus is coming to him of like, the language of like, I’m not worthy, is like, that’s shame. That’s the type of language right. So that’s where I would say we need to read a story like that, and be able to say how our guilt and shame both at work and that’s why that we in the West can learn a lot. From honor. Shame societies, like the Asian Americans in my church have helped me learn a lot about honor and shame. But societies in honor and shame societies can learn from the west about guilt as well, because that’s a really important biblical theme. So we need each other to have a fuller understanding of the cross.

Collin Hansen
I opened with your quote about the paradox of the gospel, you also write this that the cross is the ultimate exhibit of God’s judgment being poured out on sin. The cross is also the definitive showcase of God’s mercy for on it Christ for the judgment of sinners so that they may be saved. I think we could probably go back to Romans three, to be able to to identify this as well. But I’m wondering, Jeremy, what is this? What does this mean to you, personally? And what does it what does it do to your heart?

Jeremy Treat
It’s everything for me? I mean, I, like I grew up in the church. And so for me to become a Christian I had to learn that I wasn’t a Christian. No, like I I thought I learned how to play the game of Christianity, and I’m good at performing seeing and learning new things. And I learned how to like, say the right things and do the right things when I was at church, and then when I was at school, be a totally different person. And I’ll never forget when God first exposed my sin to me, it’s like I saw my self righteousness and how prideful I was. And so it was like, I recognize my sin and the judgment that I deserved.

Because of that, I was like, I’m terrible. Like, I’ve been using God, to make myself look good religiously. Like, that’s terrible. But then it’s like, the minute I understood that sin, I had this overwhelming flood of God’s grace and mercy and recognizing that in my life, so I think about even my own conversion of how that like the mercy and justice of God came together in my heart to make me new. But then I think about today, I think what I experienced in that moment, people in our society are longing to figure out how do mercy and justice fit together, right? How can love and holiness come together? That’s why I think the cross is such a great apologetic, because it’s the it’s the fullness of mercy and justice coming together in a person who’s giving himself in love. That’s beautiful. Like Hollywood can’t write a story that good.

Collin Hansen
Not even Netflix next door. Jeremy talked in his lectures here at Besian about how Netflix is next to their church, and how often tell his congregation that Netflix doesn’t have anything on us.

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, we maybe next to Netflix, but we’ve got the best story in town.

Collin Hansen
We’ve got the best story in town. It’s great for Los Angeles. What does the atonement then do for our pursuit of justice? Here and now I do think this is one of the critiques. In fact, I remember one prominent Twitter voice saying in 2016, that she blamed penal substitutionary atonement for Donald Trump. Like, it’s because it’s so individual and focused on guilt and other worldly that, you know, that’s penal, substitutionary atonement, and that’s why we ended up with with President Trump. I remember that vividly. I remember while I was, that was quite a leap. But I was wondering, how does this teaching on the atonement workout in your church in Hollywood, here’s an example one thing I liked what you wrote, you said, Jesus breaks the cycle of injustice, by responding to the greatest injustice of the world with love. It defeats hate through mercy, you’ve just been looking at this. Christ dies not to reverse the positions of the oppressed and the oppressor, but rather, to redeem both and make them family by grace. Yeah. So when you’re preaching atonement substitution in your church, not just substitution, but that, you know, that aspect of it. How does that play out in the pursuit of justice?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, I mean, I think about like, I mean, here we are in Birmingham, Alabama, I think about Martin Luther King, Jr. Talking about how hate begets hate, and violence begets violence. And that’s what that’s what like a pursuit of justice often looks like in our society today. Like when our society champions justice, it’s often driven by hate or by vengeance, like take down the other side, or we’re gonna get them back or they’ve had their time

Collin Hansen
Reversing, like you said, the oppressor, oppressed, dynamic.

Jeremy Treat
And so, all that does is it creates this never ending cycle of, okay, once you’re the you’re in power, then then whoever you’re over, it needs to take you down. So Jesus undoes all of that, not by meeting hate with hate, but by meeting it with love. And so I think that’s, it’s a model for Christians in seeking justice today. And this is I mean, Micah six, eight is do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. So we seek justice, but we do so with a posture of love. And I just think that the cross like what’s interesting to me, Colin, is that when I was like, growing up, Justice was something that conservative Christians love to talk about. And law and order. Yeah, and liberals didn’t, right, right. And you’re almost kind of ashamed to talk about it and like, like, Okay, I know, like, God’s just but like, let me explain.

It’s okay. And now, like, justice is this great thing, but but we want to talk about justice in terms of like, what it looks like for what we do, but we don’t want to talk about it with God. I think in Scripture, God is a God of justice. But he executes his justice through his people who are called to be a people of justice. Now, there’s certain aspects of that obviously, we leave to the Lord Vengeance is Mine, declares the Lord. But, man, I think like if I’m preaching justice in the cross, and then we’re saying, Okay, we believe in justice, but not in the sense of like, we’re all on the right side of history. We’re righteous and we’ve got it figured out and we got to convince everyone else but no, we’re not just we’ve fallen short, but God was making us new and drawing us into His mission, which is one of mercy and justice.

Collin Hansen
Well, whether it’s left or right, the appropriation of justice, apart from the cross often is a cover for self righteousness. And I think that’s part of what we’ve seen is that regardless of which political side wants to co opt it, yeah, it’s often a means of being able to identify myself on the side that wouldn’t need substitution.

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, totally.

Collin Hansen
Because we’re right, because the other group is effectively wrong.

Jeremy Treat
I should have put that in the book.

Collin Hansen
Well, always a chance in the future. There’s a noteworthy observation you say, again, another one of the pithy lines, a true test of theology is whether it helps the church to suffer Well, I’m going to ask this question in a little bit of a counterintuitive fashion. How do you see this play out in unbiblical teaching about the atonement? That does not help us to suffer well?

Jeremy Treat
Yeah, so like, like an over realized eschatology, prosperity, yeah, or prosperity gospel that says, that says, because of what Christ has accomplished, you have the fullness of healing, which tells you, which tells tells you that then, if you don’t expect if you’re sick, and you don’t experience healing the problems with you snot with Christ, because he already accomplished your healing. And so you must not have enough faith or God must be punishing you. And so that sets people up for failure, of just being disappointed with God, for not keeping promises he never made. When, yes, we experience healing art, by his stripes, we are healed. But we’re not promised the fullness of that until the return of Christ. And yet in in the middle, I think we will experience healing. But we will also experience God’s power made perfect through our weakness. And so by his stripes were healed. And yet, we’re filling up what’s lacking in the affliction of Christ.

Collin Hansen
A last question here that just something that stuck out stood out as I was reading your book, again, Jeremy treats my guests here talking about the atonement and introduction. It’s part of the short studies and systematic theology series for crossway. I wondered how your theological writing relates to your pastoral ministry, you write that this is what theology is about faith seeking understanding, in service of faithful living. You’re borrowing from Augustine Gustin, on that face the understanding? Right, exactly. And sort of adding your twist on there as well. But I don’t always see this connection to faithful living in theological writing.

What do you attribute that to? Is that because you’re writing this theology as a pastor, you’re, you’re thinking about how do I how do I apply this or? Because again, it just, I think that’s one of the challenges for me is that those two worlds don’t always connect. Yeah, the practical ministry world, the theological world. Of course, I care about this a lot teaching in a seminary here, where we’re training students, we’re ultimately this is what we want to see. But it doesn’t always work that way.

Jeremy Treat
Yeah. I mean, I have a deep conviction that theology is for life, that theology is meant to equip disciples to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. And so that shapes everything that I do, it shapes, my preaching shapes the way that I teach in the classroom. And I think that’s the, I think that’s, that’s what Scripture gives us. That’s what the Apostle Paul was doing in the book of Romans. But I think what’s happened is this divide has happened over the years. And you can get into the development of the university system and the Enlightenment dividing things in disciplines and kind of relegating theology to ivory tower and church being for, you know, just caring for people without getting into the deep weeds.

So you’ve you’ve got this divide, but yeah, I, I want to try and overcome that and be able to say we need rich deep theology, but we need to be able to connect it to what people are doing on Monday at work or Tuesday when they’re going out with their friends. Or Wednesday, when they’re watching the news.

Collin Hansen
Or Thursday when they’re serving the homeless.

Jeremy Treat
Yeah. Yeah.

Collin Hansen
Well, Jeremy, this is one of my favorite theology books that I’ve read in the last year. I think it works really well. In a student context. I think I would also recommend it in for elders to read through if they just want to if they want to pick a theological topic to go deep on some long book, but there’s a lot of meat in this book. And if you know anything about atonement studies, there’s a lot behind what you’ve written in there, but you do a good job. That’s why it’s fits so well in the short studies series in there as well. So if you’re looking for a good summary out there of, of atonement, and Tom has just been I don’t know how it couldn’t be one of my favorite doctrines, but it’s just a delight to be able to read and you do and you handle it well.

So I want to end where you end in the book and read this quote from your book, The Atonement, quote, while Christ makes us whole again, the greatest accomplishment of the cross is that we are made at one with God. And this is the key. If all the ills of the world were healed, all the injustice is made right, and all the sadness undone, but we were still not right with God than it would only be a momentary relief in our suffering and our eternal longing for God. There are many problems in the world, but the atonement deals with the problem beneath every problem. through Christ’s death on the cross. We are reconciled to God. Amen. Thanks, Jeremy.

Jeremy Treat
Thank you, Collin.