A Review of LAMB OF THE FREE by Andrew Rillera
Rillera, Andrew R. Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus's Death . Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2024. Reviewed b y Kelly D. Liebengood Jesus saves. But how ? And in particular, what did Jesus accomplish in his death? Historically, most Protestant traditions have replied that he died to offer himself as an atoning sacrifice. That is, in his death, Jesus stood in the place of sinners (substitution) and took upon himself the punishment for sins (penal) that they committed in order to appease God’s wrath, to satisfy his justice, and to secure forgiveness of sins (atonement). In Lamb of the Free , Rillera disassembles the building blocks for this prominent interpretation of Jesus’s death (often referred to as penal substitutionary atonement [henceforth, PSA]), and replaces them with an account of the saving significance of Jesus’s death that is coherently aligned with the logic of Old Testament sacrifice and the prophetic expectations t...