Is it just to allow an innocent person to pay for the crime of a guilty person? Let’s try that out in story form.
A wretched woman stands trial for murdering a husband and wife. The jury finds the woman guilty of all the heinous crimes she is accused of. It is now the day when sentencing will be handed down. The prosecuting attorney was going for the death penalty. The judge agrees that someone deserves to die for these crimes. But everyone in the court is shocked when instead of passing sentence on the guilty murderer the punishment is handed over to an innocent son of the victims.
Hopefully if you were in the courtroom you’d cry out against this miscarriage of justice. An innocent party should not be punished for the guilty actions of another. But what if we added a bit to the story? What if the innocent son of the victim offered to take the punishment upon himself? What if he volunteered for the job?
Such a story would be noble—and it’s the thing of many sermon illustrations—but is it really just? According to Scripture (Proverbs 17:15
), “acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent—the LORD detests them both.” No judge in the land would allow for such a thing—especially in a murder trial where the death penalty is in play.
So how in the world can we say that it is not injustice for God to accept such a deal in the death of His Son? If we did the crime, why don’t we have to do the time? To say that God poured out His wrath on His innocent Son, who willingly took the place of sinners, is a bit much for some to swallow. No matter if he volunteered or not, it is unjust to punish a righteous man for the guilt of unrighteous people.
But what if we added something else to our story. What if I said that the innocent son was actually the husband of the murderer. Now, I understand that at face value this does absolutely nothing for our argument. Why should an innocent spouse pay for the crimes of a guilty husband? But such a thing is to misunderstand a fundamental principle of our union with another.
It’s not as difficult of a thing to grasp if we are talking about finances instead of the death penalty. It’s not considered unjust to transfer debt to a husband once he marries a spouse. The justice system have no problem making a willing husband financially responsible for his wife’s student loans. In this regard they consider the two as one.
Now I understand that when we start talking about death penalty instead of student loans it gets a bit trickier. I suppose this is where the analogy might break down a tad. But biblically speaking we are united to Christ in such a way that he actually becomes responsible for our debt. This in part is what 2 Corinthians 5:21 is talking about. When Christ took the church as His bride he took upon Himself her debt.
How can God the Father punish His innocent Son for the sins of an unrighteous people? Because by His willingness to marry this unrighteous bride he was “made to be sin”. Though not guilty of any sin of His own, by His union with a sinful bride, in a very real sense He is no longer the innocent Son.
The man upon the Cross is bearing the punishment of His beloved bride. That is the only way that He could be among the cursed hanging upon that tree (Galatians 3:10-14). Any other reason would be a gross mishandling of justice. I appreciate this point in Pierced For Our Transgressions:
The only way to explain how Christ could have died at all without compromising God’s justice is to say that our sin and guilt was imputed to him. Although Christ was sinless in himself (he bore no guilt for his own deeds), he nonetheless did bear the guilt of our sins. It is ironic that criticism of penal substitution, which claims to be concerned to uphold God’s justice, actually ends up undermining it. (Pierced For Our Transgressions, 248)
Take heart, he has paid our debt in full. This is why he cried tetelestai from the Cross. Through our union with Him and His perfect work, we are debt free and living in His positive righteousness, all by the Father’s good plan and good pleasure. This is great news!
Of course, the idea that Jesus died for other’s sins, so that when we are united with Him our penalty is paid, is brought forth by Romans 3: 21-25…
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Some would say that Jesus died for everyone’s sins, while others might say that He died for only certain people’s sins.
But across the board we can agree on this: If one places their trust in Jesus, that person’s sins were paid by the Lord.
Thus we can all unite behind the same Gospel:
Jesus is the crucified risen Lord and all that call upon Him in faith will receive eternal life.
You are wrestling toward some of the fundamental principles of salvation for sure. Jesus was born and lived under the Law of Moses. That fact identified Him completely with Israel, the Jews under Moses.
His innocence was the innocence of a Holy Lamb without blemish which was demanded by that Law He was born under. He, being the Son of God, was offering not simply the blood of a animal, but His blood to satisfied the God of Israel for all the sins, past and future, of Israel . Not just sins on a yearly schedule offered at Passover. Which was a duty of the physical temple .
Your article, Mike, his dealing with some of these principles. The Church needs to connect Israel’s story to see God’s work clearer. Jesus said, ‘Salvation is of the Jews” to the Samaritan women. To understand Salvation will be to understand the mind of Jews. Jesus was a Jew.
This Jewish / non-Jewish divided is not a easy hurdle to cross.
The Apostle Paul did say about Christians, “It is not a Jew outwardly who is a Jew but inwardly of the heart.”
Jim,
What was said:
Romans 2:26-29 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.
Who then is the Jew?
It is he who is one inwardly, whose circumcisions is of the heart by the Spirit, whose praise is not from men but from God.
If a Gentle meets those qualifications, he is considered a Jew, part of the people of God, an Israelite, and a child of the Most High God
Furthermore Jim,
In Christ, ethnically speaking, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, even as we read:
Ephesians 2:11-22 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
I am a simple layman, my wife would say a very simple layman. I did not know or was not aware that this was an issue with most SBC members how are pretty clear on why Jesus gave his life made us white as snow. Sticking with the Jewish law only the person who was wronged can forgive the transgressor, so I think it is pretty clear. God cannot tolerate sin so he sent his Son to take our sins away. Nothing wrong with refreshing and reinforcing the teaching but my question is if this is really an issue? Is the issue with some that God is evil if he sacrificed his Son or demanded payment? Just probably unaware of any disagreement on the issue . I am sure it is my lack of comprehension. Jesus took my sins and I took his rightness , this is from a merciful God, am I missing something.
John,
A little bit. Jesus died under a very specific background. That background was Israel under the Mosaic Law. They system did have a sacrifice for forgiveness. But it was a system that never went to the root of their’s and the world’s real problem. That problem was not just the need to be forgiven but the need to defeat what kept gaining dominance or them. That rule was sin and death. Jesus defeated both.
Jim, those sacrifices could never take away sins. Hebrews 10:4, 11
John,
Those animal sacrifices could not permanently take away the problem of the effect that Sin and sins introduced into the lives of individuals and the nation Israel but, they did give temporary relief of forgiveness and re-acceptance into the community God, Israel under Moses.
My point is, that the Church needs to see this transition from the sacrifices under Moses to God’s sacrifice under His Son to appreciate the full picture of the Gospel message.
That lack of appreciation is over-simplifying this work down to a level that ignores too much history. Jesus is fulling engrafted into that History, the History that began in Genesis.
In fact, the only two times dispensation (a trigger word in a lot of understanding) mentioned in scripture involves Jesus and the transition from the dispensation before His death and resurrection to the dispensation after His death and resurrections. The only two time dispensation is mentioned.
John, I simply hope I’m adding to some understanding in this discussion.
Jim
Thank you. I’d like to read more messages like this one. God bless.
Marriage is only the metaphor to help picture the reality. The reality is the inbeing that we share with Christ when His Spirit is put in us to become one with our spirit—the two becoming one new man in Christ. This “mystical union” brings a new union of human identity, so that the sinner and Christ have now become the same person in the eyes of God’s justice. What He accomplished from cradle to grave (and after, as He is risen), We now get credit for—an ownership in His deeds as if they were our own.
The reason that this is so often missed and not emphasized these days is because we long ago left behind the key to this perspective when we left behind the realistic understanding that Adam was more than our representative—that all mankind actually participated in Adam’s sin because all had a real inbeing in him when he sinned. We have all been propagated from Adam not only in our bodies but also in that very nature within that chooses sin or righteousness. Having left behind that Augustinian understanding that we had a real inbeing in Adam and thus a justly shared identity, we now accept in its place an “imputed” sharing of identity, and are left to wonder how the cross could justly save us.
Mike,
Well-written article.
Hoping you can help clarify a part of it. If I’m reading it correctly, your article presupposes that the Bride was already ‘around’ when Christ paid the price for her sins on the Cross. Maybe I’m off base, but it seems to me that the NT writers conceive of the Church as those who believe in Christ. Only then, do they (we) become the bride of Christ.
IOW, Christ did not die for an already constituted bride. Rather, He made a provision such that those who look to Him become His bride.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Moose
I believe there is one sense in which Christ did die for an already constituted bride (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29, etc.) Of course there is another sense in which you aren’t technically part of the bride of Christ until you come to him in repentance and faith.
I’m not trying to espouse eternal justification or anything here. Just saying that God is really outside of time and so I believe there is Scripturally speaking a constituting of His bride even before the foundation of the world.
Now that we’ve opened that can of worms….
Mike,
That’s double-speak. They who consist only of thought do not really exist. God is outside of time but we are not. Justice must be according to truth, and truth corresponds with substantial reality.
Please see my comment above. The reason Federal Headship has to resort to such ideas as an “already constituted bride” is because it has discarded the real participatory existence of all men in Adam, substituting a union that was “constituted” in God’s mind. Your question, “Is it just for the innocent to pay for the sins of the guilty?” applies to both Adam and Christ. Eternal condemnation aside, no one disputes that we do pay for Adam’s sin, being born mortal and with a nature inclined toward, into a world full of sin, pain and misery. Federal Headship gave up the moral ground within substantial reality upon which real justice relies, and offer instead a “constituted” moral ground in God’s mind alone—and a constituted justice to go with it.
Ken,
If we weren’t at the time of the cross how did we have “a real inbeing in Adam” and “actually participated in” his sin seeing how the cross came after Adam?
Ken,
Also, did Jesus die for real sins and if so, whose?
For when one speaks of the substantial reality upon which real justice relies, how is it that one can die for sins not yet committed?
Or how is it He can suffer for my sins when I am not yet real?
I am real enough to sin in the garden but not real enough for Jesus to die for my sins?
And was it not the purpose of God for Jesus to suffer and die for the sins of His people, even those not yet born, so that when they came to faith they would be redeemed? And are these people known by God, by name, from before the foundation of the world? And are these people, the elect, once redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, as a whole, considered to be the Bride of Christ?
And seeing that these things are true, then it is also true that Jesus gave His life for His bride: a certain (to God) group of people which infallibly constitute that bride.
Blessings brother.
Mike, You ask good questions, but they require more than short answers. Southern Baptists hold that because of Adam’s sin, all men are born with a nature that tends toward sin, and yet, every man must choose Christ for himself. So we already know that our progenitor may morally ruin us, while no progenitor may be saved for us. Adam had that opportunity, to “confirm in righteousness forever” all of his descendants, by choosing obedience and passing his probationary test. But since he failed and sinned instead, then natural propagation can only pass along the effects of this fall and a nature that participated in it. You asked, “If we weren’t at the time of the cross how did we have ‘a real inbeing in Adam’ and ‘actually participated in’ his sin seeing how the cross came after Adam?” and, “I am real enough to sin in the garden but not real enough for Jesus to die for my sins?” The idea of having an inbeing in Adam that made us participants in his sin is not that we as individuals participated (personally and individually), but that we participated corporately. As Augustine, said, “We all were that one man” (Adam). In other words, the spiritual being of any man (except the first Adam and the Last Adam) does not begin at his individual existence, but it began as a corporate existence within Adam. This is not to say that Adam was spiritually any different than us (aside from being unfallen), but just to say that human propagation is such that the spirit of Adam has been propagated to everyone. Having been spiritually propagated out of Adam, we look back to our corporate “mode of existence” within him. After Adam’s sin, salvation became strictly a matter of individuals, but Adam’s sin (our sin within him) had a just and ruinous effect on the corporate whole and on every descendant. So then, while you, Mike, did not exist personally and individually when Adam sinned, you didn’t need to in order for you to participate corporately and reap the corporate consequences and judgments on that sin. God sends no one to hell for the corporate sin of the race in Adam, because God’s eternal judgment of individuals is only of what that individual did—personally and individually. Our sin nature, our mortality, and all of the Adamic curses associated with his sin are justly… Read more »
Mike, You asked, Also, did Jesus die for real sins and if so, whose? For when one speaks of the substantial reality upon which real justice relies, how is it that one can die for sins not yet committed? Or how is it He can suffer for my sins when I am not yet real? Christ died as a sin sacrifice. There is no (and never was) atonement without the faith of the repentant sinner. Christ’s death only atones for the sins of a sinner after that sinner comes to faith and is indwelt with the Holy Spirit (by which the Christ and the believer are made one). Christ’s death is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, but it propitiates God in the case of NO man until that man comes to faith and is spiritually joined to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. By the two becoming one new man in Christ, the believer new identity is in Christ and he gains an ownership in all that Christ accomplished just as if the believer had done it himself. You see, unlike the unity in Adam, union with Christ is indeed personal and individual, and it saves us because we gain more than the nature if Christ—we gain His Person! We were naturally propagated out of Adam and are no longer joined to his person; but we are supernaturally propagated into Christ and are forever joined to His person. This is real atonement: Christ and the sinner joined at the level of the spirit to such a degree that justice can rightly credit the sinner with the cross of Christ just as if it had been the sinner who died—AND justice can rightly credit the sinner with all of Christ’s righteousness from cradle to cross. When Scripture says that Christ took our sins upon Him, that expression speaks of our punishment for sin. He suffered the penalty as the archetypal sinner. His physical suffering was emblematic of the incomprehensible suffering that only He, as God and man, could endure. It was exactly what each of us as an individual owes to God’s justice. Each of us deserved to endure the entirety of His suffering—the whole wrath of God against sin. And justice finds in each of us the record of having endured exactly that suffering when the eyes of God’s judgment pierce our being and find… Read more »
Ken. Thanks for that answer. before i address that, the other question: For whose sin did Jesus die for? Real sins? Only Old T. sins? Sins uncommitted. Like mine and yours? You said that I had an inbeing with Adam. And that my existence was real there in the garden. And yet, I wasn’t. I did not exist before my conception except, if this counts and i think it does, in the mind of God. Might you say my spirit existed with Adam? You could, except with Adam it wasn’t my spirit. Nor was it my body. From that body and that spirit all humans came forth except the Lord. But it wasn’t mine. I wasn’t until in the womb God made me. That He used body and spirit of others does not make exist before i was conceived. i had no identity outside of the mind of God until he formed me in my mother’s womb. That I suffer the consequences of sin and mortality does not mean I was in existence in any ‘real’ way except as God had eternally decreed that I should one day be. In that sense, i neither sinned in the garden nor died on the cross. I wasn’t until 1958. Neither was my twin, who came from the same father and mother. Whose body and spirit derived from the same sources and yet he is not I and I am not he. And before conception we weren’t at all. Except in the mind of God. God created this world with a purpose. Yes to be glorified but with the purpose of having a people to Himself. He has [and had] a plan and he moves kings and mountains, countries and wind, hearts and souls to fulfill His desire. These people aren’t just random happenstance, but he is building His city, as a wise master builder, with exactly what he chooses and is fitting us together to be a temple unto the Lord. Or, a bride for His Son. And these people he has foreknown from the beginning, which means he has known them, which implies that their existence was a certainty, and to Him, a reality, since as you agree, he transcends time. But in, in, this world, where a person is only by his embodiment, there isn’t existence without a personal material body. Therefore i only exist in this world as I… Read more »
Mike, As usual, your questions require some length to answer. You asked: For whose sin did Jesus die for? Real sins? Only Old T. sins? Sins uncommitted. Like mine and yours? As I said previously, Jesus died the death of the archetypal sinner. Was what you owed really any different than what I owed or what anyone else owed? Every sinner is due the complete wrath of God against sin. Every single sin is a complete sin-debt against God, and is due the full wrath of God. We all owe that same debt. And Jesus endured the full, complete wrath of God against sin. These sin-debts are like infinite debts: there’s no way to add them together and come up with anything more than an infinite debt. If my debt was infinite and your debt was infinite and everyone else’s debt was infinite, then we can each one look to the cross and see ”that was my debt He endured.” My debt was not some fraction of what He paid but the whole thing—I owed ALL of it. Just so, His atoning death is not applied collectively but to each believer as a one-for-one substitution. Why is it that we remained under God’s wrath until we believed in Jesus? Why is it that we were not forgiven if we were already atoned for? The answer is found in how the entirety of the cross is applied to each believer as a one-for-one substitution. It is applied in the only way that would satisfy justice, which demands not only that sin be punished but that the sinner be punished. It is applied by putting the very spirit of Jesus into the believer for the purpose of joining the two into one new man, joining the believer’s identity to Christ Himself. This enables the believer to claim in truth, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me…” This enables justice to look at the new man, a conjoining of the two, and rightly attribute to that new man all of the human past of both men, in such a way that the believer’s sins are swallowed up in Christ’s atoning death and the believer’s life of sin is hidden in Christ’s perfect lifelong righteousness. Because Christ’s death on the cross is perfectly suited to the sin-debt of any sinner, then once you believe, it… Read more »
Mike, You stated: You said that I had an inbeing with Adam. And that my existence was real there in the garden. And yet, I wasn’t. I did not exist before my conception except, if this counts and i think it does, in the mind of God. Might you say my spirit existed with Adam? You could, except with Adam it wasn’t my spirit… I wasn’t until in the womb God made me. That He used body and spirit of others does not make exist before i was conceived. i had no identity outside of the mind of God until he formed me in my mother’s womb. That I suffer the consequences of sin and mortality does not mean I was in existence in any ‘real’ way except as God had eternally decreed that I should one day be. In that sense, i neither sinned in the garden nor died on the cross. I wasn’t until 1958. … I never said that you had an individual and personal existence prior to your individual and personal conception. But nevertheless, none of your protestations and denials do anything to refute the idea that human spiritual existence is first corporate “within the loins of” one’s forefathers and only afterward, individual. As Robert Landis thoroughly established from historical sources, in his book, Original Sin, the Western Church—while not very accepting of philosophical explanations such as traducianism—from the Reformation until well into the 19th century held as a mysterious but biblically revealed fact that all men had a real participation in Adam’s sin—and that it was imputed to us only because it was our sin. And of course, this they held in line with Augustine and those before him. So if you’re not satisfied with traducianism and its philosophical explanation of a corporate spiritual existence in Adam, then I recommend that you consign it to mystery but affirm the Scriptural fact as the early Reformed Church did. Deny corporate spiritual existence if you will, but denials mean nothing. All you protesting that “I wasn’t in Eden,” are meaningless if it was not the “I” but the “We.” You are begging the question of whether your spiritual being can be addressed by more than one pronoun and can have more than one mode of existence. I was not in Eden, but we all surely were, since “we all were that one man (Adam).” Romans 5 12… Read more »
The last paragraph in the article summed it up well. We all know the OT was foreshadowing on NT, Jesus paid it all. I am just glad that majority Christians have no doubt why Jesus died on the cross . Many of the old hymns that many churches do not sing anymore explain in so well why we have Victory in Jesus. Thanks to those here who do share their knowledge.
John,
A long time ago…
https://www.facebook.com/dale.kopp/videos/10207442915777403/
Mike,
Just thinking out loud here.
The cross took place at a certain time. And the death was real, the body suffered and died.
But the cross is more than just about a body dying, though it is that. But that alone couldn’t be enough to satisfy the wrath of God or the Lake of Fire would soon consume any human existence thrown in there. Thus the cross was more than natural: it was both natural and spiritual. The separation Jesus endured, the forsaking of Him by His father was more than just a physical death.
Thus the death of our Lord had to do with the Trinitarian relationship of God and thus is and was transcendent of the natural earth. In some way, God died to Himself through the Godman Jesus. Thus considering the timing of our sins as a people [before, during, and after the cross] and that they are against a transcendent God means that our offenses and the way we grieved Him are and were not limited to the exact [earthly] time we rebelled but in a sense were [can i say this?] felt by God always in His transcendence so that when Jesus went to the cross, our sins were counted against Him at that time and when we come by faith, uncounted against us, at that time we come.
We read in Romans 5:
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Just some thoughts maybe to think about, maybe to ignore. i am not sure either way.