Christus Victor, the Divine Council, and Theological Implications of Christ’s Kingship
Tending Our Nets: The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think
Anthony Delgado and Joshua Sherman dive into key theological concepts surrounding the gospel, exploring the interplay between Christus Victor and penal substitutionary atonement. They discuss the centrality of Christ's kingship, the implications of the divine council worldview, and the practical aspects of discipleship. By examining the broader narrative of Scripture, they highlight how understanding God's wrath, love, and the cosmic powers of principalities and powers shapes a fuller comprehension of the gospel. The conversation also touches on how baptism serves as a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of God and how believers are transformed through teaching and practical application. This interview offers an expansive view of the gospel’s reach, encouraging deeper reflection on its role in both individual and communal faith.
NOTE: Video transcript is lightly edited for readability and may contain errors.
Joshua Sherman: All right, I’m here today with Anthony Delgado. He’s a pastor in California and the author of The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think. He’s also an aficionado of the divine counsel worldview, along with other interesting theological topics. I wanted to introduce Anthony and his work to this audience. Do you want to give us a bit more about who you are?
Anthony Delgado: Sure, I’d love to. Thanks for having me, Joshua. I’m Anthony Delgado, married with three kids. I’ve been married for 21 years, and my kids are all teenagers. My oldest is a Christian ministries major in college, and the other two are on their way, growing up fast.
I pastor Palmdale Church in Southern California, a church plant we started about four years ago. We’re working in a new community, and we call ourselves a pop-up church because we meet outdoors. In this community of about 45,000 people, there’s no space for churches—so we’re trying to bring the Kingdom of God here and eventually build a permanent presence.
Along with pastoring, I’m also an author, podcaster, and as of last week, a YouTuber. If anyone finds my YouTube channel, forgive the typos and my lack of experience, but hopefully, the ideas are solid. I’ve got my hands in a lot of different things—writing articles, posting soon about the deity of Christ. If anyone’s interested, you can find it all on my website, anthonydelgado.net. It’s a hub for everything I do.
Joshua Sherman: Awesome. So your book, The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, has a lot of crossover with the podcast I did for a while. I put it down, but now I’m coming back to it, realizing there’s more to talk about. I think we’re on the same page about recognizing limitations in how many people understand the gospel. For a lot of people, it’s mostly evangelistic tools—something memorized to help present the message to someone. That’s good, but is it really the gospel?
Anthony Delgado: Right, like the Romans Road and all that.
Joshua Sherman: Exactly. I covered that earlier in the podcast, and you address it well in your book, outlining where it goes and some of its limitations. I think the main takeaway is that The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think is exactly what it sounds like. It shows the incredible depth and power of the gospel, which is far greater than many of the simplified stories we've heard. I want to encourage people to engage with your content. But I also want them to understand why you saw limitations in current approaches. What need did you see that made you think, "I need to write a book about this"? Were you trying to combine a few things, or did you have your own unique perspective that led you to start?
Theological Background and Diverse Influences
Anthony Delgado: Well, I guess part of it is that theologically, I’m kind of a Frankenstein. I grew up in the non-denominational world. I’m influenced by what you might call neo-reformed theology, but also Baptistic, with some Wesleyan Methodism mixed in. In a non-denominational church, you usually have only a few core beliefs on the statement of faith, with no creeds, so you get a bit of everything.
I had really diverse exposure. My bachelor’s degree is in Christian Reason, which was a unique program at Sterling College in Kansas. The program doesn’t exist anymore, but its focus was on why Christians believe what we say we believe. It wasn’t what I expected—I thought I’d be studying the Old and New Testaments, but instead, I was reading ethics, Church Fathers, and Second Temple literature. They wanted us to understand how our faith developed, which is something you don’t typically get from pulpit ministry.
Joshua Sherman: Or most bachelor’s programs, to be honest.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, I might be overstating its significance a bit. I remember one of my textbooks was more like “Augustine argues this” rather than actually reading Augustine himself. But even in those books, you’re still exposed to quotes and ideas.
Anthony Delgado: At the bachelor’s level, you’re probably not doing original research or pulling up source texts yourself. So, it was lighter than it sounds, but it was still deep exposure to the ideas. Through my bachelor’s program, I studied a lot of early church ecclesiology and eschatology. If anyone follows my work long enough, they'll notice I have a few soapboxes like everyone else. One area I care less about, oddly enough, is soteriology.
That’s kind of ironic considering I wrote The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, but when you read the Church Fathers, it seems like soteriology wasn’t their main concern—everything was the gospel.
Joshua Sherman: So, you're saying the arguments over the mechanics of it aren’t the most important thing. The key is who Jesus is and the fact that he saves.
Anthony Delgado: Right. In systematic theology, soteriology is about parsing the mechanics of how salvation works. But before the fourth century, you don't find much detailed material on it. Augustine started doing some of that work, but the earlier Church Fathers only addressed it when necessary.
In my master’s program, I had more freedom to explore this further. I took classical studies courses that examined how theology developed alongside history, and I took a class on Second Temple literature. For some listeners, you might think, "Oh, the Apocrypha?"—which is part of it. It’s Second Temple material. I think it’s funny because for many people, that’s just the Bible, but in the Baptist world, it’s something different. I pastor a Baptist church, and while I’m influenced by reformed covenantal theology, I also read Catholic and Orthodox authors. I want to understand theology from anyone willing to engage with it honestly.
As I studied, I became bothered by the constant arguments over the mechanics of salvation. People argue about what constitutes the gospel, especially in the reformed world with debates like penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) versus Christus Victor. I remember when N.T. Wright's How God Became King came out, which leaned toward a Christus Victor model. The PSA crowd, including John MacArthur, lost their minds—MacArthur even called Wright "N.T. Wrong."
To me, it was crazy. I see the framework of PSA in scripture—the idea that there's a legal penalty for sin and Jesus atones for it. I know some people want to interpret it differently, and that’s fine, but I don’t want to arm-wrestle over it.
Exploring the Interplay Between Christus Victor and Penal Substitutionary Atonement
I see both Christus Victor and penal substitutionary atonement in scripture, and I believe there’s a way they work together. As I worked through those ideas, I began to see a modified ransom theory fitting into the model. Then, looking at motifs like sonship, the church as the bride of Christ, and how different scriptural themes interact, I realized that the gospel is much bigger than we often think.
This book was originally titled A Biblical Theology of the Gospel, but my wife said, “You can’t call it that.” When I asked her what it should be, she didn’t know, but said, “Something like The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, but not that.” And I thought, “No, exactly that!” It just felt right when she said it. I have no regrets about the title. I actually did a sermon series on it over a year ago to flesh out the ideas and practice them, and I still haven’t come up with a better title.
As I developed these ideas, I started to notice that the reduction of the gospel was contributing to issues in many evangelical churches. The more we minimize the gospel, the more problems arise. Some churches treat theology as broad, but then say, “All you need to know to be a Christian is this small part.” The smaller you make the gospel, the more it gets watered down. It’s like the prayer-style evangelism approach where you're sharing the gospel with someone at a gas pump. You can have a conversation, sure, but you can’t fully share the gospel in that moment if the gospel is miles wide instead of inches wide. The Romans Road approach just doesn’t cover the full scope.
And then you ask him if he wants to receive Jesus into his heart. Even if he says yes, he’s believed just this small part, and yet we’re proclaiming that based on that small belief, he’ll spend eternity with Christ. But he doesn’t even know what “spending eternity with Christ” means—he just doesn’t want to burn in hell. And he doesn’t really know what that means either. That’s why I don’t use that terminology.
When you talk to people on the streets, you often find that they already believe a lot of what the Bible teaches, simply because we live in the Western world. So, who decides what those few “essential” ideas are that people need to believe to get to heaven? In practice, people tend to believe they’re saved based on the handful of ideas they hold onto. It becomes very individualistic. We say, “All you have to do is believe this to be saved,” and then people make their faith about things that aren’t even biblical—sometimes they’re culturally Christian ideas, whether on the left or right of the social spectrum.
The problem is, they haven’t been given the full gospel or discipled in it. I think this broader understanding of the gospel addresses that issue. Any pastors or priests listening to this know it’s a problem—they have people in their churches who’ll sign off on all the good theology the church teaches, but they can’t explain it, teach it, or find it in scripture themselves. Instead, they come to every event and just promote their personal soapboxes.
We’ve given them the freedom to make their faith about whatever they want because we haven’t asked them to embrace the whole story of Christ.
Years ago, before we replanted the church I pastor now, we moved to a new community. It was a bit of a bummer because we moved away from my house, but it was my idea, so what can you do?
Before that, we were working through some of the church’s ideological issues. We used to always pass the plates for the Lord’s Supper. Someone would get up, say the same thing from 1 Corinthians 11, the deacons would pray, and we’d pass the plates. I thought, this needs to be more meaningful—more central to our worship. So, we re-envisioned how we approached it. One change we made was asking people to come forward to receive the elements. We wanted them to understand that the Lord’s Supper is a participation in Christ’s sacrifice, not just a service the elders and deacons do for them.
We wanted them to see their role at church as active participation, not something being done for them. Like being part of the praise band or something—you’re involved in the worship. So, we invited them to come to the table and participate, symbolically, at the altar. I told them, "You are the priests, and you're coming to eat the sacrifice with the priests." That was the sermon I gave before introducing this change.
Well, about the third time we did it, I noticed six sweet, elderly ladies who didn’t get up to take the Lord’s Supper. I asked our associate pastor to grab a plate and bring it to them, and he said, "Oh, they won’t take it." I was surprised. I mean, I’m the lead pastor, and no one had mentioned it to me! To him, it was just something they weren’t going to participate in because it wasn’t what they were used to.
This moment highlighted something I’ve seen often—people have fixed ideas about how things should be, and it’s hard to teach them a deeper understanding of the gospel. Part of the immaturity, even among longtime believers, is due to a lack of gospel understanding. Tim Keller said it, though I don’t think he was the first: "The one thing every believer and unbeliever needs regularly is the gospel." Everything can be framed in the gospel, at least in some sense.
Anyway, those ladies eventually left our church—not just over that, but over other changes. They went to a church that did communion the way they wanted, and that had a women’s tea and the other things they felt were missing. I’m not against teas or women’s ministries, but I want those things to be centered on Christ and His work. They didn’t want that—they wanted things their way. They wanted a “Burger King” church.
Joshua Sherman: When you talk about theology and the gospel, it’s easy to reduce both to something purely propositional—like theology is just information, and the gospel is a tiny bit of that information. I’m not saying salvation has nothing to do with information or propositions, but it’s about putting things in the right order. I’d say it starts with Christ, the Word of God, then the gospel is the proclaimed word about Him. The scriptures are the written Word that tells us about Him, and even creation sings of His glory. All of these things center on Christ. That’s why the table is so important, because it’s actual participation. The information is good, but it can also be a barrier if it keeps us from engaging with the person of Christ. It’s about reinforcing that relationship and allowing religion and relationship to work together, rather than being at odds. Does that make sense?
Anthony Delgado: It does. For illustration, I’m just old enough to remember when the internet, or the World Wide Web, launched. It was my sophomore year of high school, and it wasn’t like it is today—hardly even the same thing. Back then, if you didn’t want to read a book for English class, you’d go to the library and get CliffsNotes for something like Catcher in the Rye. You can still get them online, or even ask ChatGPT for a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of To Kill a Mockingbird, and it’ll crank it out for you.
Joshua Sherman: How long until you can just say, “Give me a SparkNotes or CliffsNotes of this,” and then it knows?
Anthony Delgado: You probably could do that right now. You could get the SparkNotes or CliffsNotes version and not even read the book—you’d have all the core information to fool your teacher and pass the test. But if you love literature, why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you just read the book? You’re missing out on the best part. I know that, and I don’t even love literature. I love scripture and ancient literature and how it interfaces with the biblical worldview. That’s my thing.
But when it comes to classic or contemporary literature, I don’t really care. I geek out on biblical and related subjects. That’s my field. And with all the talk about AI, like using it to write sermons, I don’t worry much about it. If someone’s using AI to write sermons, they probably weren’t thinking deeply in the first place—they were using some other crutch, and now they’re just moving to a new one.
For me, sitting down and studying scripture to write a sermon is the best part. That’s where the real work happens, even more than delivering the message. But I’d hate for someone to miss church and then say, “Oh, I read the synopsis on YouTube, I got the gist of it.” No, you didn’t. Even if we wrote a great description with all the main ideas, those three propositional truths aren’t going to bring true understanding and heart conviction.
When people think someone has truly believed the gospel from just hearing a simplified presentation—like the Four Spiritual Laws or the Romans Road—they may have grasped some ideas and intellectually agreed, but that’s not the same as heart conviction.
But I bet you, by tomorrow morning, they won’t be able to recapitulate what they heard, so no, they haven’t truly received Christ. Now, maybe you can talk them into thinking they did so they come to church and get discipled, and that’s how some gospel presentations still kind of work. But how much better would it be to sit down and say, "I’ve got a story to tell you"?
Start wherever you want. Maybe it’s a story about giants from Genesis 6—whatever. That story will eventually track to Christ if you understand the scriptures. Tell a story, let them experience it, and see how their life connects to it. That’s so much more effective. It’s why more books are being written and sold today than ever before, despite AI and all the free content online. People want the whole story.
Meanwhile, we’re diluting churches by not giving the whole story, which is so antithetical to what people are really seeking.
Joshua Sherman: The way you described the CliffsNotes and SparkNotes earlier, I think we could take that a step further. Not only do we have a text telling a story, but it's a story about a person—God become man. And while there's a gap between the synopsis and the full text, there’s an even bigger gap between the text and the person. We're inviting people into that relationship and participation, and the text is one of the primary ways to do that. But when we just stick to the synopsis, we're already several steps removed from where we need to be. It makes me sad when people think, “I know the basics, I’m good.” It's not just about knowing more; it's about whether the basics are relational.
Anthony Delgado: Right, exactly. Faith—or belief—isn’t just something you know intellectually. It’s something you know so deeply that it changes your worldview and the way you live. That’s my core definition of faith. And if we’re talking about the gospel itself, there’s this central, convictional element that has to be there before you can experience or understand anything else.
The gospel is rooted in the story of Jesus—what He’s been doing since Genesis, what He will do in Revelation 21 and 22, and everything in between. It’s the redemptive narrative we call the Bible. If you trace the story and watch what Jesus does, especially in the gospel accounts, you see that they’re focused more on getting the story right than on explaining propositional truths.
People often ask me why we call them “the gospels.” They understand that sharing the gospel means evangelizing, but they wonder why those accounts are called “gospels.” It’s because they tell the good news—what Jesus has accomplished. It’s interesting that the gospel writers, like John or Mark, don’t focus on doctrine. They're more concerned with the story. That can be surprising for many Protestant preachers or academics who prioritize doctrine.
The Kingdom of God and Its Central Role in the Gospel
For Jesus, especially in Matthew, the gospel is about bringing the kingdom of God to humankind. If you understand the gospel as the story, you can read Matthew and see the "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God" everywhere. It’s all over Luke, too. And if you want to get clever, read Paul and set aside your doctrine of justification for a moment. Look for the kingdom of God, and you'll see it in every verse.
Anthony Delgado: Paul's doctrines, his extrapolation of these stories, aren’t abstract or influenced by Greek rhetoric. Nor is it something specially revealed to him by Jesus. It comes from his study of Jewish texts and his experience of Christ—stories from the gospel accounts, which he wasn’t there for but was no doubt influenced by as he met with the disciples. The story undergirds everything.
If I can be reductionistic, the core story is this: You were excommunicated from God's kingdom when your father Adam was excommunicated. Some will tie this to doctrines like original sin, and if that analogy works for people, that's fine. I don't prefer that wording myself, but I explain it like this: I was born in the United States because my parents were born and lived in the United States. Likewise, Adam and Eve's children were born outside the garden—outside God’s kingdom. It’s that simple.
You’re born apart from God, apart from His kingdom, and in the kingdom of the world. The New Testament, especially Paul, emphasizes that Christ calls us to take refuge in His kingdom because this world is a place of persecution, not blessing. We’re fleeing the persecution of the world’s kingdom and taking refuge in the kingdom of God. Christ, as King, leads us into His kingdom.
If you want to talk about penal substitutionary atonement, Christ paid for our war crimes. He paid that penalty at the cross so we could enter His kingdom with a new citizenship. And if we have a new citizenship, we shouldn’t live with dual citizenship—we belong fully to the kingdom of God.
That’s the core story, and everything flows from it. If you see this as the good news, you'll notice that the word gospel (Greek: euangelion) is often translated as good news in the New Testament. The gospel isn’t just a set of propositions to believe in order to be saved—it’s news. It’s what Jesus has done.
Think of it like this: when a king sends his troops to battle with his trusted general, and they win, the evangelist runs as fast as he can back to the king, shouting along the way that they’ve won the war. The people celebrate because they know the king’s kingdom is victorious. When the evangelist reaches the king, the good news is declared to him, and an edict goes out across the kingdom: “We’ve won the war.” That’s the good news that’s delivered.
Joshua Sherman: And that’s why we have the phrase, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news,” right? The news of victory. There are so many moving parts here. We could dive into a lot of different pieces.
Just to give people an idea: your book, The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think—right now, we’re focusing on the gospel proper, the story of Christ. But you also cover other important themes in different chapters. You talk about the Kingdom of God, which we’ve touched on. There’s gospel victory, which relates to what we’ve been discussing. You cover gospel family, which ties into the idea of being born into a certain kingdom—there’s a family element to that. You discuss gospel restitution, where you go into atonement and penal substitutionary atonement, gospel repentance, which addresses how this impacts our lives and behavior, and gospel transformation, which takes it even further.
Each of these topics shows how the gospel is much bigger than people think. I wanted to highlight that because these aren’t just pieces of information. It’s like reading different letters from someone to understand who they are. As we learn more about Christ’s victory, we learn more about Him in a specific way. When we explore gospel family, we learn more about who God is and who we are in relation to Him. All of these things matter because they revolve around who God is and who He created humanity to be—whether in brokenness or restoration.
There’s just so much in your book, even in just over 200 pages, and it’s incredibly helpful for people to dive into.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, I think gospel victory is a big one to talk about. I mentioned this earlier—the idea of Christus Victor versus penal substitutionary atonement—and both get a chapter in the book. When we talk about victory, Christus Victor refers to Christ's victory over sin and death, and sometimes the spirit world as well.
The Christus Victor model of atonement suggests that we are made right with God because Jesus has won a spiritual battle. We’re no longer bound to sin or death, but are free to walk in the light and have life—the life of Christ within us, as we see in John 1. This victory allows us to enter God's presence again. In the resurrection, Jesus conquers death, and that’s why He grants us the life that is in Himself.
But you can’t believe this unless you first believe that Jesus is King. That’s central, and it's what I talk about in chapter three—gospel proper. Even within a Protestant framework, where we view sin as the core issue and God’s wrath as the consequence, you have to understand this: I can’t die for your sins, even if I lived a perfect life. What makes Jesus' life significant is not only that He didn’t sin, but that He is King. If Jesus wasn’t King of the cosmos, He couldn’t die for your sins.
It’s His kingship that’s central—He’s the one bringing us into His kingdom. My life, even if I were perfect, wouldn’t settle the cosmic dispute that keeps us from entering God’s kingdom. What prevents us from coming into God’s kingdom or entering heaven at death is the King’s permission. And it’s through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and especially His ascension to the right hand of the Father, that we see He’s not just the rightful Davidic King, but the one who spoke all things into being, as Paul says in Colossians 1.
He’s the rightful King of God’s throne in heaven. And unless that’s who He is, He doesn’t have the power to grant us entry. My death doesn’t accomplish that, but the King of the universe does have that power. So, the gospel events place Jesus in the King’s throne.
Joshua Sherman: I guess a basic way to look at it is this: I could say I believe in something resembling penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), but my understanding of it is so different that I usually just say no and then explain what I actually mean. For me, I’m much more centered on Christus Victor, and I have more limitations on where I go with PSA.
It seems that the common framework people have for PSA is that Jesus saves you from the judgment and wrath of the Father, placing the Father in the role of judge and King. But in scripture, Christ is the one enthroned as judge. What you’re saying right now makes more sense to me than the standard way people tend to organize their thinking around this. Does that make sense?
Anthony Delgado: Yeah.
Joshua Sherman: How does that change things?
Anthony Delgado: I agree with you about PSA. For as useful as the terms can be when used properly, I think if you're separating the Father and the Son in their judicial roles, you might not fully understand the Trinity. That doesn’t make you a heretic, though. As long as you're affirming that God is one God expressed in three persons, I get it. The Trinity is a difficult concept, and I know many people in churches who love Jesus, love the church, and love God’s people—even though they might bump into issues if they tried to explain the Trinity according to the Church Fathers.
Joshua Sherman: Knowing the Trinity is different from just knowing about the Trinity.
Anthony Delgado: Exactly. So, save your “ice, water, and steam” analogy, and just tell me you believe. But if you're creating an unnatural separation between Jesus and the Father, that's where the issue lies. Even in the Nicene Creed, it says everything was created by the Father, while Paul clearly says it was created by Jesus. I’m just like, yes! Because I understand that Jesus is the agent of God's work.
Reformed theology, which I lean towards, teaches that all things are of the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So everything Jesus accomplishes is also the work of the Father. It’s not any less the Father’s doing just because the Son carried it out, and it’s not any less the Spirit’s work just because it was empowered by Him. If you try to divide God into three distinct gods instead of understanding them as three expressions—or persons—of one God, you're going to run into problems.
It's the same issue as those who do away with God's threeness to emphasize His oneness. It’s complicated, but when we say Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, we’re affirming that He’s on the throne as King. In Revelation 21 and 22, He's the only one sitting there. The Father isn’t present in that image.
Joshua Sherman: It’s interesting to process, right? We like to be very literal, thinking that if something isn’t described, it can’t be happening. But maybe it’s just the part we need to know.
Anthony Delgado: Exactly, and we often receive things analogically. For example, in Daniel 7, the Son of Man ascends to the Ancient of Days, and He’s given dominion over everything in heaven and earth. This is the opposite of Acts 1, where Jesus ascends to heaven—we get the heavenly perspective in Daniel 7. The Ancient of Days is depicted as sitting on His throne, but in Orthodox iconography, it’s considered taboo to depict the Father.
Joshua Sherman: I hadn’t noticed that before. That’s fascinating.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, it’s not everywhere, but it’s common to depict the Father symbolically, often by just showing His hand. They want to maintain the distinction between the Father and the Son without blending them into one. But sometimes you do see depictions of the Father, though it’s frowned upon in certain traditions. These symbols are intentional—they help us understand key theological principles.
When we see Jesus ascending to the right hand of the Father, it’s not to suggest the Father is a completely different God. It’s to show that Jesus, as God, receives from the Father and is enthroned as King of heaven. Daniel, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives us this picture to convey Jesus’ rightful place as King without creating an unnatural separation between Father and Son. That’s the symbolic takeaway we need to avoid misunderstandings that lead to destructive separations.
We may have gotten a little off-topic, though.
Joshua Sherman: It ties into what I find problematic with the way many people talk about penal substitution. You often hear things like the Father forsaking or abandoning the Son, or even extreme ideas like God damning Jesus or Jesus going to hell to pay for sins. These concepts seem strange, especially when you consider the perfect unity of the Trinity. How do you reconcile that?
Sometimes, I feel people don’t maintain that unity when discussing this. To safeguard it, they end up creating a divided Christ—separating His humanity from His divinity, which gets sketchy. That’s partly why I back away from the terminology, because it’s not what I mean.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, and the second most complicated doctrine, after the Trinity, is the hypostatic union. There’s a metaphysical way to understand a first and second death, similar to how we understand a first and second resurrection, that might help us grasp Christ’s suffering. But I don’t want to project human metaphysics onto Jesus, because our spirit isn’t exactly like His, and our resurrection isn’t precisely His resurrection, though we follow His pattern.
Joshua Sherman: Exactly. It’s tough to map everything onto humanity when we’re talking about the God-man. It’s different. Trying to map divinity onto humanity also complicates things. That’s why I step back from certain terms, because sometimes they seem to overreach.
I also think people overread the idea of Jesus being forsaken by the Father. Yes, the Father handed Him over, and Christ allowed Himself to be handed over. There’s a sense of abandonment in that—Christ wasn’t rescued from the cross, and He didn’t bring Himself down. That’s real. But there’s no sense in which the Father and Son weren’t united in that moment.
I can see pieces of the analogy, like Israel going into exile and experiencing the oppression of foreign nations, and Christ being outside the city, handed over to the Romans. That makes sense. But when people push it further—talking about the Father directly punishing Jesus with wrath and hellfire—that’s where I get uncomfortable. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Wrath, Love, and Theological Tensions
Anthony Delgado: I do have some thoughts, but let me start with a caveat. In theology, people often refer to the mystery of the incarnation—which is kind of a way of saying, “I’m not going to touch that too deeply and risk becoming a heretic.” I’m not going to publish a paper on what I think about that because someone will pull out the Church Fathers, creeds, and councils to counter it. It’s just that difficult, so I’m sympathetic to that.
But I agree with you that the way we talk about the wrath of God can be dangerous, especially in how it affects our understanding of God’s love. When we abandon God’s wrath entirely, though, we lose something about God’s sovereignty. Sovereignty is a word often thrown around in theology, particularly in Reformation teaching, where it’s used to argue that God predestines because He’s sovereign. But sovereignty really means that God is King—He does things the way He wants and isn’t constrained by our rigid readings of Scripture.
Joshua Sherman: I noticed that when you walked by the Calvinist-Arminian debate. You were like, “Okay, here’s Calvinism, Arminianism, and Universalism.” You touched on Universalism briefly because it’s outside the main scope, but you just walked past the rest.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, and I think all three views—Calvinism, Arminianism, and Universalism—are, in a sense, analogies to explain something we don’t fully understand. But we do need to wrestle with God’s wrath. If God’s wrath is expressed one way, it can feel like God isn’t sovereign. If it’s expressed another way, it can feel like God isn’t loving. I won’t downplay the role of emotions in theology because emotions can be a way of expressing things we understand on some level but can’t always put into words. So, if someone is offended by the idea of penal substitution, even if they can’t articulate why, it might indicate a problem with how they’re understanding it. The same goes for people who get angry when it’s challenged—there could be a misunderstanding there as well.
I tend to define God’s wrath for sin like this: when was the last time you sinned and got struck by lightning? Probably never, right? But that’s often how we talk about God’s wrath, like when a hurricane hits and people ask who sinned for it to happen. We get an analogy for that in Jesus’ own teaching. When He healed the blind man, the disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?”
The cops are going to show up. And if you keep running, they’ll probably hurt you—not kill you, hopefully, but they’ll hurt you to get you into the back of the police car because justice is being done through natural means. If we can begin to see sin as something that works against the perfect ordering of everything God created as good, then we can start to understand the consequences of sin as expressions of God’s wrath for violating that order.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, that reminds me of the passage that often comes up in this discussion: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That phrase often comes across as, “I’ve broken these rules,” but I think it’s more than that. You mentioned Matthew Bates—he talks about falling short of the vocation, and N.T. Wright touches on this too. It’s about falling short of our calling as human beings to act as God’s representatives, to be co-regents with Him.
It ties into Psalm 8, where the question is asked, “Who is mankind that you are mindful of him?” God crowns humanity with glory and honor. That’s true of both humanity and Christ, and people can argue over how it’s used, but it shows how interconnected everything is. Christ being crowned with glory and honor is about bringing us back into what we were meant to be—restoring what was lost in Adam and Eve and healing the corruption. He’s restoring and redeeming all things.
Right, exactly. If you think about it, the restoration of creation is a big deal—like, that’s what we’re talking about in The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think.
Anthony Delgado: That just happened to be sitting there. That wasn’t for shameless plugging.
Joshua Sherman: Mine was there because I was taking notes!
Anthony Delgado: Fair enough. But I do want to point out that not every instance of God’s wrath fits into that category. For example, when the earth opened up to swallow the sons of Korah, that was immediate punishment for their arrogance and lack of humility. And when we read Romans, especially about how the end times will unfold, we see a clear picture of God’s wrath. Romans is especially telling about Paul’s idea of wrath—there is a category for God’s wrath on the earth.
Even within Second Temple literature, like the Book of Enoch, there’s a picture of four angels at the corners of the earth holding back the storms. I think this shows up in Revelation too. The angels are told by the Christ figure to keep holding back the storms because the time hasn’t come yet. There’s a sense in which sin is tearing everything apart, and there will be a moment when God says, “Let the storms loose, let the stars fall, let the seas rage.”
It’s God allowing the natural consequences of sin to wreak havoc on the earth. But at the same time, as a King with the divine prerogative to withhold or not withhold, it’s still an expression of His wrath. So, I think it’s a false dichotomy to separate God’s wrath from the natural consequences of sin, but I also understand why explaining it the other way can be offensive. I just tend to prefer the former.
Joshua Sherman: I can see that. The flood is a great analogy—it’s a natural event, but clearly a judgment from God. Yet it wasn’t just about destruction; it was also a reset and cleansing, a means of transformation for new creation. It seems like we see a similar idea in the future—trial by fire, where God’s fire cleanses and purges, but also transforms creation into what it should be. That includes the purging of what shouldn’t be there. So, there’s definitely a combination of those elements when we try to understand it.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, I think it’s R.C. Sproul who famously said, "God saved us by Himself, from Himself, and for Himself." I find that phrase a bit cute and not quite right—it carries some of that offense. But you do see elements of it in the flood narrative. Because the thoughts and intentions of every man's heart were only evil continually, it was a grace of God to purify the earth for Noah and his sons. That’s why Jesus is the ark in that story—He’s the one who carries His faithful through to life on the other side. It’s a proto-apocalypse.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, that makes sense. Is God saving us from Himself? Well, yes, but why? If it’s just because we broke some rules and God’s mad, it starts to feel familiar in a bad way, especially for people with broken relationships, particularly with fathers. But when you realize that God’s wrath is about setting things right, it changes everything. There’s a real ontological corruption and brokenness to sin that can’t be fixed by a simple declaration or accounting. God is cleansing and restoring. When I see it that way, it makes more sense to walk the path between “it’s just natural consequences” and “God’s mad.”
Anthony Delgado: Right. As a dad, I might have some rules that are just preferences, but most are for the safety, well-being, and training of my children. God doesn’t have rules that are just preferences. All His rules are an expression of His love. Even His wrath is against what He ultimately desires—what He wanted in the garden and what He wants in the end. It all fits into the larger narrative.
I think it helps to differentiate between the meganarrative and the metanarrative. The meganarrative is the big, on-the-ground story when you read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—what God, humans, and divine beings are doing throughout that narrative. The metanarrative, on the other hand, is the story alongside or beyond that—what God is accomplishing.
For example, in the meganarrative, we might say, "The Son received dominion from the Father." But in the metanarrative, we’d say, "Jesus was restored to the authority He always had." Similarly, with God’s wrath, in the meganarrative we say, "God destroyed the earth with a flood." But in the metanarrative, we say, "God purified the earth to preserve righteous Noah."
Biblical theology needs to consider both the meganarrative and the metanarrative. Then systematic theology brings in other influences like biology, archaeology, or philosophy to further analyze the text. But when it comes to the story, we need to hold both narratives, even if it feels like we’re saying two different things. That’s actually an ancient Near Eastern intuition—the idea that the story conveys the truth on multiple levels.
Joshua Sherman: When I think of it in terms of story, it helps to navigate those ideas. You have the experience of the people going through destruction, like Noah’s family, who also experience it but in a different way. Then you have the narrator telling us how to understand it—explaining what God is doing. So you get both the individual experience and the larger context. That larger sense of the story is really important when we start to understand the gospel as being bigger in other ways, too.
The Divine Council Worldview and Its Implications
Joshua Sherman: One of the things we talked about was bringing in the divine council worldview. Maybe we can touch on that before we wrap up?
Anthony Delgado: Yeah, I’d love to. For me, the divine council worldview is a helpful framework, not because it’s a new way of reading scripture, but because it’s a title we’ve given to the way ancient people saw the world. It’s not the same across every generation—it’s more complex than that—but there are some consistent elements.
In circles around Michael Heiser, we use the term divine council worldview to talk about the council of divine beings (gods, lowercase “g”) that were appointed to judge the nations. This idea stems from the Babel event, where the nations were divided according to the number of the sons of God. Each nation had its own divine judge. Psalm 82 gives us a glimpse of their role—these Elohim were meant to rule justly and point people toward Yahweh, possibly through Israel, His chosen people.
But they failed. If you compare Amos with Psalm 82, the Israelites were oppressing their own people with the same injustices attributed to the gods—ruling unjustly, exploiting the poor, and bolstering the wicked. Psalm 82 is a plea for God to judge these corrupt rulers.
In the biblical storyline, we’re looking at this meganarrative that traces back to the Genesis 10 event. Deuteronomy reflects on this, giving us an explanation for the division of nations and languages. It all stems from a social rebellion where people sought the spirit world to make a name for themselves instead of looking to Yahweh.
As we trace the narrative, we see that 70 (or 72 in the Septuagint) nations were split up, each with its own god—or as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians, their “so-called gods.”
Anthony Delgado: Exactly. Principalities and powers, or so-called gods, might sound like Paul didn’t believe they existed, but it’s more like, “the gods, or so they are called.” These are spirits, but they’re not God. There is one God, and one Lord, as Paul says. These beings were ruling unjustly, but Jesus stepped in. Because of His humility—Philippians 2 talks about Christ’s humility—He didn’t count equality with the Father as something to be grasped. Instead, He took on the form of a servant and was obedient to God’s plan, even to the point of death on a cross.
Because of this, God raised Him up and seated Him at His right hand. His name, in this context, refers to Yahweh—the name theology of the Bible. Jesus is restored to His position as Yahweh, where every knee will bow to Him. This is part of the meganarrative work, where we see the Father dethroning the cosmic rulers and giving their authority to Jesus.
What’s interesting is that people often talk about the fall of Satan, and many think, based on Milton’s Paradise Lost and related traditions, that Satan fell before the garden, before Adam was created. But Revelation 12 describes the fall, which happens after the incarnation. There’s tension already in Genesis 3, so Satan may have rebelled before, but his “fall” refers to being cast out of heaven. In the ancient three-tiered cosmology—heaven, earth, and under the earth—Satan and his angels were cast down from heaven during the incarnation events.
They no longer hold their cosmic positions, so they’ve been dethroned and are now on earth. This helps explain why Satan is present on earth even though he no longer has any official authority. Jesus picks up on this in the Great Commission, in Matthew 28:18-20, when He says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, disciple the nations.”
Jesus is essentially saying, "They don’t have power anymore." There’s still a presence—these powers still want worship, even though they’ve been dethroned. They’re not in the lake of fire yet, they’re not chained in Tartarus yet. But they’ve been dethroned, and now we need to go tell people they’re free. It’s like Juneteenth, where there was a gap between when slaves were freed and when they found out they were free. That’s what the Great Commission is: going to all the nations and telling them they’re no longer bound to the kingdoms of this world or the powers and authorities that once ruled them. In Christ, they can be free.
It’s not about saying, “You’ve sinned, now would you like to receive Jesus for forgiveness?” It’s about proclaiming that Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, and these so-called gods have no power anymore. You don’t have to appease them. It’s the message that Jesus is King.
At the end of times, Revelation 20 says the lake of fire was prepared for the devil and his angels, and after they’re thrown in, those who remained faithful to the kingdom of the world will be thrown in as well. It’s ultimately a kingship issue. In a world becoming increasingly open to spiritual things, we need to understand the power in these words—the power of the evil one to influence us, whether through people, influences, or even visions and dreams. We need to keep Christ and His kingship at the center of it all.
That’s really the core of Christus Victor: Jesus conquering not just sin and death, but the powers that inspired sin and death from the very beginning, all the way back to the garden.
One last thought on this is from the Great Commission: Jesus says, “Therefore, disciple the nations.”
Joshua Sherman: Yeah.
Anthony Delgado: And how do you do that? By baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—which is essentially the name Yahweh. But I don’t want anyone going to their pastor saying, “You’re supposed to be baptizing in the name of Yahweh!” and causing issues. The Trinitarian formula has been used for a long time, and I’m all for it. But know that the name we baptize in is Yahweh.
Baptism is a pledge of allegiance to the King. It’s forsaking loyalties to the kingdoms of this world and committing to follow Christ and His kingdom. And there’s a practical element to it—how do we know how to live in this kingdom? By teaching people to obey all that Christ has commanded, which starts with church, liturgy, prayers, and extends to daily worship and life.
Teaching obedience isn’t about enforcing rules like “don’t smoke, don’t drink.” It’s about learning to walk in the rhythms of worship, the rhythms of God’s glory. One of the problems that inspired my book is when people reduce the gospel to rules. They think, “I prayed the prayer, now I have to follow all these rules to be a good Christian.” While I’m all for following the rules, it’s important to follow them because you love Christ, not out of fear that your baptism didn’t count.
When we teach people that the gospel is just about rules, they end up with a conundrum: “Why don’t I love the things God loves? Why do I still love my sin more than Christ?” This inner conflict can lead them away from the church if they don’t grasp the bigger picture of the gospel.
Gospel Transformation and Discipleship
Joshua Sherman: It reminds me of raising children. You teach them rules, but as they get older—preteens and teenagers—they don’t want to hear about the rules anymore. If all they have is the rules without the relationship, things break down.
Anthony Delgado: Yeah.
Joshua Sherman: And as a parent, you lose the opportunity to speak into the adult they become, to help them mature in the way they should. That’s the kind of discipleship we want—the kind of relationship we should have in the gospel family, which you talk about. That’s what enables gospel transformation, another theme in your book. Everything is interconnected.
Anthony Delgado: Definitely. There was a logical order to those chapters in part two. They are interconnected, but I wanted to discuss them separately.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Well, I think it’s a good time to wrap things up. Maybe share some closing thoughts and remind people where they can find you and your book.
Anthony Delgado: Sure. My hope and prayer for this book really stems from a pastoral place. I preached this sermon series to my church because I believed it would be effective for them. Then I wrote the book because the feedback I received from my church was, "People need to hear this." One of our staff members even asked, "What are we going to do for new people? Make them watch all the sermons on YouTube?" And I thought, well, maybe.
In a way, I produced the book for our church, but also for the larger Church. Palmdale Church isn’t the only local body of believers—there are countless others. To the degree that I’m right about these things, I hope it can serve the wider body. I realize some traditions may rub up against parts of this, though. You even messaged me about the section in the Gospel Family chapter titled "The Incarnational Mother of the Church," and I know that raised some eyebrows. But hey, now people have to buy the book to read that part!
It’s not as weird as you think, but it was meant to have a bit of a shock factor.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah.
Anthony Delgado: My goal is to disciple people and help them understand how vast the gospel is, so they can see it in everything. I want people to know they’re not unconverted just because they don’t feel changed or unrepentant. I want them to see the pathway toward repentance and real life change—practically experiencing Christ and having a love and desire for transformation. Being transformed into the image of Christ, as Romans 9 says.
I’m still a work in progress, but my exploration of the gospel, even years after being saved and pastoring, has been sanctifying in a new way. I feel a renewed zeal to live as Christ would live if He were me. That’s my hope for people, and it’s the prayer I’ve prayed over this book. I hope anyone who reads it, especially your listeners, will see it as a pastoral work.
There are parts where you might think, “What is that word?” but I tried to stay away from academia and keep it accessible. We have teenagers in our church reading it, so anyone can. You won’t miss anything important because of a complicated word. I just want people to have access to the truth.
If anyone wants a copy, I’d direct you to two places: Amazon.com is the easiest, and soon it’ll be available on Audible, likely within weeks of this recording. Also, for any of my works—books, articles, YouTube videos, and more—you can visit anthonydelgado.net. I recently launched a mailing list, so if you want to keep up with my projects, you can sign up there. It’s just once a month, not a big deal, but a good way to stay connected. And I’m also working on a deal for a Spanish translation of the book. You can follow me on Facebook or Instagram too, but the mailing list is the best way to stay updated.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, I really appreciated the focus you have on story and symbolism, which allows us to engage with these things in a fresh way. It’s not just about a list of beliefs or a pattern for evangelizing, but about coming to Christ, engaging with Him, and participating with Him. A list of rules doesn’t capture that reality.
Story and symbolism help us see patterns, and when we apply them, we can reframe our lives around who Christ is in a way that propositions and lists just don’t. I encourage everyone to check out your book and your work, and to always be seeking Christ, recognizing that the gospel is truly bigger than we think.
Anthony Delgado: Amen.
Joshua Sherman: All right. Thank you, Anthony. It was great talking with you.
Anthony Delgado: Absolutely. Thank you.
Joshua Sherman: You’ve been listening to the Tending Arnett’s podcast. If you like what you hear, check us out at the Raven Creek Social Club and by searching for us on social media at Tending Our Net’s.
