The Atoning Death Of Christ

As I was reading this morning I came across another quote by J.C, Ryle on the Atonement; this time from Matthew 20:28. In this verse Jesus makes the statement, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Of this statement Bishop Ryle wrote:

Christ's death was an atonement for sin. What says the Scripture? "The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many."

This is the mightiest truth in the Bible. Let us take care that we grasp it firmly, and never let it go. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not die merely as a martyr, or as a splendid example of self-sacrifice and self-denial. Those who can see no more than that in His death, fall infinitely short of the truth. They lose sight of the very foundation-stone of Christianity, and miss the whole comfort of the Gospel. Christ died as a sacrifice for man's sin. He died to make reconciliation for man's iniquity. He died to purge our sins by the offering of Himself. He died to redeem us from the curse which we all deserved, and to make satisfaction to the justice of God, which must otherwise have condemned us. Never let us forget this!

We are all by nature debtors. We owe to our holy Maker ten thousand talents, and are not able to pay. We cannot atone for our own transgressions, for we are weak and frail, and only adding to our debts every day. But, blessed be God! What we could not do, Christ came into the world to do for us. What we could not pay, He undertook to pay for us. To pay it He died for us upon the cross. "He offered himself to God." (Heb. 9:14.) "He suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18.) Once more, never let us forget this!

J.C.Ryle

Expository Thoughts On The Gospels, Vol 1, Pg 258

We need to keep this in mind; this is the Gospel! Jesus came into the world to give His life as a ransom. He paid to God the debt we could not pay. His death was not to give us an example, it was to pay our debt; He was our sin offering, our propitiation.

Spend a few minutes today thanking Him for the price He paid so your sin could be forgiven.

Another Thought Provoking Grace Gem

I have said before how much I look forward each day to the email that I get each morning from Grace Gems, and that even though every one of them is worth reading, on some days they are just profound and I find myself thinking about what I read all day. Today is one of those days. Today's Grace Gem was an excerpt from Arthur Pink's article David's Terrible Sin, and he asks the question, "Why did God permit David to fall so fearfully and sin so grievously?"

Have you ever asked that question about David? Have you ever asked that question about yourself? Have you ever wondered why God allows us to continue living in this sinful world and why, when He could keep us from sinning (Genesis 20:6), He allows us to still make our own choices and still lets us sin grievously against Him?

I have quoted Romans 8:28 here before and I think that this verse is just as applicable in answering these questions as it is in answering any other question we may have: everything that God allows in our lives has as it ultimate purpose to make us more like Christ. But how does that apply to when we sin? Look at what Arthur Pink had to say:

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. " Psalm 51:1-2

Why did God permit David to fall so fearfully, and sin so grievously?

One reason may be--that we might have set before our eyes the more clearly--the solemn fact that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). Unmistakably plain as the meaning of those words is, uttered by Him who cannot lie--yet how very slow we all are to really receive them at their face value, and acknowledge that they accurately describe the natural state of every human heart! But God has done more than make this bare statement: He has placed on record in His Word-- illustrations, exemplifications, demonstrations of its verity--notably so in allowing us to see the unspeakable wickedness that still remained in the heart of David!


Also, the fearful fall of David, made way for a display of the amazing grace of God, in recovering His fallen people. If we are slow to receive what Scripture teaches concerning the depravity of the human heart and the exceeding sinfulness of sin--we are equally slow to really believe what it reveals about the covenant-faithfulness of God, the efficacy of Christ's blood to cleanse the foulest stain from those for whom it was shed, and the super-abounding grace of Him who is "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort." Had David never sinned so grievously and sunken so low--he would have never known those infinite depths of mercy which are in the heart of God!


Also, had his terrible sin, his subsequent broken-hearted confession, and his pardon by God, never been placed in the Divine record--many of God's people throughout the centuries would have sunk in abject despair.


Also, thousands, from age to age, have by this solemn example of David's terrible sin, been rendered . . . .

• more suspicious of themselves,
• more watchful,
• more afraid of temptation,
• more dependent on the Lord,
• and more fervent in prayer.
  

By means of David's fall--they have, themselves, been preserved from falling!

Could this not also be the reason that some of us have fallen into terrible sin? Maybe the purpose was so that we would more fully appreciate the redemption that we have in Christ. Or maybe it is just so we can show compassion to others when they stumble themselves. I am certainly not saying that I completely understand why God chose to leave us with the ability to sin after we have come to Him in repentance and faith, but what Arthur Pink wrote does make sense.

Remember, as a child of God our goal - our desire - is to never sin, and we should be doing everything within our power to flee from any and all sin, but when we do fall we have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ; He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2).

Take some some tome today to get alone with God, repent of any known sin in your life and then thank Him that He alone is our Rock and our Salvation.

The Heresy Of Open Theism (Part 2 - The Atonement)

The other day I began a series of posts dealing with the teachings of Open Theism and I want to continue that today by taking about the Open Theist's view of the Atonement. This is essential to the issue of whether or not Open Theism is a heretical belief system, or if it is just another acceptable form of orthodox, historic Christianity. I will show here that the Bible clearly teaches that Christ died in our place as substitutionary Atonement for our sins and that the Open Theism denies this and replaces it with a governmental model of the Atonement that obliterates the true meaning of the cross.

As we begin the first question we must answer is this, what does the Bible teach about the death of Christ? Was it a sacrificial atoning death, or was it just an example for us to see how God feels about sin? To answer this question we must look at to the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and the picture that was being painted there, because as we see in Hebrews, and the Mosaic law, the temple (or tabernacle) and the Old Testament sacrificial system were set up as a picture of what was to come and to point us to Christ (see Hebrews 8:1-6 & 10:1).

We see throughout the Old Testament that when someone sinned, the sin could not merely be forgiven and forgotten as if it had never happened. When sin occurred a sacrifice had to be made and that sin had to be atoned for. The Hebrew word that for Atonement is kāp̱ar, which The Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament defines as a word of "supreme theological importance in the Old Testament..." It then goes on to say:

At its most basic level, the word conveys the notion of covering but not in the sense of merely concealing. Rather, it suggests the imposing of something to change its appearance or nature. It is therefore employed to signify the cancellation or “writing over” of a contract; the appeasing of anger... The word also communicates God’s covering of sin. Persons made reconciliation with God for their sins by imposing something that would appease the offended party (in this case the Lord) and cover the sinners with righteousness. In the Old Testament, the blood of sacrifices was most notably imposed. By this imposition, sin was purged and forgiven. The offenses were removed, leaving the sinners clothed in righteousness. Of course, the imposition of the blood of bulls and of goats could never fully cover our sin, but with the coming of Christ and the imposition of His shed blood, a perfect atonement was made.

According to this definition, what Jesus did on the cross was take upon Himself the wrath of God that our sin deserved. Notice that the definition includes "the appeasing of anger" in connection with the forgiveness of sin. The Open Theist teaches something completely different, however, Open Theism teaches that God never demands a payment for sin and that the death of Christ did not absorb the wrath that we were due but that it merely shows Christ as a partaker with us in the human problem of pain and suffering.

So the next question that we must ask then is this, is there any Biblical basis for saying that Jesus appeased the wrath of God, or even that God expresses anger and/or wrath towards sinners?

To answer this question we need go no further than Psalm 5, where we read:

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness, evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes, you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies, the Lord abhors the blood thirsty and deceitful man.

Psalm 5:4-6 (emphasis added)

From this passage, and many others, we can see that the Bible teaches that God hates "all who do iniquity" (Psalm 5:5 NASB). This passage also tells us that He abhors violent and deceitful men (v6). Anyone who has looked honestly at themselves knows this description fits each and every one of us since we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). Romans also tells us that the penalty for our sin is death (Romans 6:23), which is exactly what God told Adam in the Garden when He warned him not to eat of the tree (Genesis 2:17). God is good to His word, in fact it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18), and Galatians 6:7 warns us:

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap.

Galatians 6:7

So we have a problem; God hates sin, and He hates those who practice sin. He also said the the result of our sin would be death, and He cannot lie. But our problem is even worse than that; according to Proverbs 17:15 we are told that it is an abomination to the Lord to forgive the guilty, therefore, if you have sinned even once God cannot just forgive you - you must pay for your sin. And the price of sin is death.

This concept is repeated all throughout Scripture as we can see from the following verses:

...I will not acquit the wicked (Exodus 23:7)
... the Lord will by no means clear the guilty (Nahum 1:3)

And in Romans chapter 1 we read:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Romans 1:18

This is the problem that we all face, and this is the reason for the death of Christ. His death was the payment for our sin; He took the wrath that was meant for us upon Himself so that in exchange He could give us the righteousness that is His. His death was an Atonement that appeased the wrath of God and paid the penalty for our sin. Again, you cannot read the Bible without this being clear:

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:5-6

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us...

Galatians 3:13

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness...

1 Peter 2:24

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God...

1 Peter 3:18

He is the propitiation for our sins...

1 John 2:2

Writing on this subject in his book The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness, John MacArthur said:

The Atonement was a full payment of the price of sins, to satisfy both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sins without compromising His own holy standard.

And A.A. Hodge wrote:

With few exceptions the whole church from the beginning has held the doctrine of Redemption in the sense of a literal propitiation of God by means of the expiation of sin.

In other words, it has been a core belief of the Church, from the very beginning, that the death of Christ was a substitutionary death; that He purchased with His blood people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).

This is clearly what the Bible teaches about the death of Christ, but as I said above this is completely different from the governmental theory of the Atonement taught by Open Theism.

The Open Theist believes that the death of Christ was necessary only to salvage God's reputation, and not an actual substitution in which He literally took the sinners' place. This view of the atonement originated with Hugh Grotius, a Dutch theologian in the sixteen hundreds. His theology grew out of the Socinian view, which stated that the Atonement accomplished nothing objective on the sinners behalf; it was merely a symbolic gesture.

The problem with this view is that it alters the Gospel by making the message of the cross not about what God has done for sinners, but what the sinner must do for God. The governmental theory therefore leaves the sinner responsible for his own salvation, with is just another form of works salvation.

So how does the Open Theist come to this conclusion? George Otis who is an advocate of the governmental theory described it this way in a sermon he gave in 1981:

God loves man, He loves him so much, He wants this intimate fellowship with him. But He also recognizes that sin is a horrible, powerful thing and He doesn’t want it to start spreading out of control in the universe. And to allow man, to help man to understand how He viewed sin and how terrible sin really was, He attached a sanction to it and that sanction was death.
So what is God going to do? Is He going to, in effect, condone sin? And say “Okay, I know I said, ‘The soul that sinneth it shall surely die’—but in this case, the soul that sinneth it shall live, because I really like you and I really don’t want you to die”?

But then what’s going to happen when the next person sins? God really likes him too. And the same with the next one and pretty soon nobody’s going to die for their sin. But the other alternative, of course, is that everybody dies. And that’s not too hot an alternative either. So this is God’s government problem. How can God, as the righteous moral governor of the universe, whose responsibility it is to uphold the law of the universe and to uphold righteousness and to protect society. How is He going to get out of this dilemma? This is God’s governmental problem.

George Otis, Jr.

So what does God do? According to George Otis, God makes a dramatic display of divine justice in the death of Christ and he uses Romans 3:21-26 as his proof text; this verses says:

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.

Romans 3:21-26 (NASB)

Mr. Otis places the emphasis on verse 25 and the word demonstrate. He completely misses, however, the word propitiation which means "a sacrifice of atonement." It is not the public display that removes our guilt and our sin, it is the propitiatory death of Jesus Christ. But Otis completely misses this and he states:

Christ did not pay the debt or literally suffer the penalty of the law for His people. He prepared the way for our debt to be remitted. Or in plain language, dispensing with all metaphor, He made it consistent and proper and honorable for sin to be forgiven according to the prescribed terms of the Gospel.
The truth is Christ paid no man’s debt.

Then he goes on to say:

On a personal basis God could say the second after a sin is committed, “hey, I forgive you.” He doesn’t hold any grudges or bitterness. He doesn’t need to be paid back before He can forgive. There are no strings attached to His love. But He’s got to be careful in His role, not as our father, but in His role as righteous, moral governor of the universe, that He’s not careless in extending forgiveness so that it encourages others to sin. He can’t do that.

George Otis, Jr.

According to the governmental view of the Atonement then, the death of Christ was necessary only to salvage God's reputation, and it had no actual value as a substitutionary Atonement on the sinners' behalf. This emasculated view of the death of Christ and the Atonement that He made completely obliterates the true meaning of the cross. According to the Open Theist the cross is merely a demonstration of Christ's willingness to suffer but it in no way appeased the wrath of God, nor did Jesus suffer for the sinner in his place. This view completely ignores verses like:

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

John 1:29

...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Hebrews 9:22

The language used in these verses deliberately evokes images of the Old Testament sacrificial system and the concept of expiation upon which that system was built - shed blood was the required payment for sin.

This concept is completely foreign to the Open Theist because they teach that sin may be forgiven, or it may be paid for, but it cannot be both - the mere idea of sin being paid for makes forgiveness impossible in the Open Theist's mind. They also believe that neither sin, nor righteousness can be imputed from one person to another and go as far as to say that to do so would be unjust and would therefore make God unjust. They do this by ignoring verses like Romans 4:5 and Philippians 3:9, which both teach that the Righteousness that the Christian possesses is not his own, but Christ's.

To make the point, Charles Finney (a nineteenth century Theologian often quoted by Open Theists) denied that justification was by faith and actually taught that the sinner must become perfectly righteous in order to be saved, he wrote:

There can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law. This is of course denied by those who hold that gospel justification, or the justification of penitent sinners, is of the nature of a forensic or judicial justification. They hold to the legal maxim, that what a man does by another he does by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ’s obedience as ours, on the ground that he obeyed for us. To this I reply: … His obedience could no more than justify Himself. It can never be imputed to us. … It was naturally impossible, then, for Him to obey on our behalf.

This then is the Gospel of Open Theism - it is a Gospel of works. You cannot have it any other way; if Christ's righteousness is not imputed to the sinner then the sinner must make himself perfect - and any way you look at it this it is a doctrine of works. The Apostle Paul warned us:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:8

And that is what Open Theism teaches - another Gospel.

Jesus Christ, Our Propitiation

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2

As we continue our study of First John we come to what is arguably the most important word in the entire Bible after the name of Jesus; in 1 John 2:2 we are told that He (Jesus Christ) is the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is somewhat difficult to define because there is so much more meaning here than anything we can express with mere words. Webster's Dictionary defines the word propitiate as: "to gain or regain the favor or goodwill of : appease, conciliate" and propitiation then as "the act of propitiating: something that propitiates: an atoning sacrifice." This is what the word means, but in the life of the Christian this definition does not adequately express what it means that Jesus is our propitiation.

In order to get a glimpse of what this word really means for us we need to first see clearly our condition before God apart from the propitiatory work of Jesus. We read in Romans that all have sinned and fall sort of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), but have we really ever stopped to think what that really means? In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he wrote:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 2:1-3

What we see in these verses is that apart from Christ we are dead, we are under God's wrath, we are called sons of disobedience, and if we follow this all the way to chapter 5 Paul actually tells us that the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 5:6). Once again we see that we have a dilemma; we are under the wrath of God and we have absolutely no way to appease that wrath. We need someone who can reconcile us to God and move us from being under His wrath to a position of favor - that is propitiation. When John writes that He is the propitiation for our sins what he is telling us is that Jesus has acted on our behalf and appeased the wrath of God that we were due because of our sin. And how did Jesus do this? I really like the way the NASB translates this verse because it tells us that "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins..." In other words, Jesus' death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice that God required to pay the penalty for our sins; Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, took our sin on Himself and took the wrath of his Father in our place and in return He gives us His righteousness so that we can have favor with God. Here are just a few verses that illustrate this point:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

Galatians 3:13

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:4-5

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Titus 2:11-14

And Finally:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 3:21-25

As you can see, this is a very important doctrine, and I have only scratched the surface of all that this implies in the life of the believer. We could study this for the rest of time (maybe even eternity) and never exhaust or fully understand what it means that Jesus is Himself our propitiation.

John then finishes verse 2 by saying that Jesus is not just the propitiation for our sins but also for the sins of the world. This can be a very controversial verse and some have used it to teach a universal salvation meaning that because Jesus died for the sins of the whole world the whole world must be saved. But that cannot be what this verse means because this would contradict other passages that clearly teach that salvation is given only to those who repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus Christ. So what does this phrase mean then?

I think that what John is telling us here is not that the whole world will be saved by the work of Christ on the cross, but that the work of Christ on the cross is sufficient to save the whole world. Let me put it another way; Jesus died for our sins as our propitiation, and His death is sufficient to pay the price for every sin that every person who ever lived ever has or ever will commit. However, in order to appropriate that payment to the account of the individual sinner it is the responsibility of each sinner to repent and turn to God for salvation. Or to put it yet another way, Jesus' death is the complete and perfect sacrifice and nothing else is needed or can be added to it, it perfectly covers every sin - we just need to accept it by faith, repent of our sins, and turn to God. When we do this there is a propitiation for all of our sins, and not ours only, it is also available to all who believe.

The Gospel Illustrated

What if there were a picture that gave us a graphic illustration of the gospel? What if nature itself would declare the grace and mercy of God? What if a simple thunderstorm could show us all exactly what took place on the cross and demonstrate once and for all the love that Jesus has for mankind?

On February 12, 2008 that is exactly what happened when during a thunderstorm in Rio de Janeiro someone snapped this picture of the statue of Jesus as it was struck by lightning. When I saw this picture my initial reaction was that this was a cool picture, but as I thought about it more I realized that this picture was a good illustration of the gospel. Let me explain:

We read in the book of Romans that we are all sinners and that the result of, or penalty for, our sin is death (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23). But God, being rich in mercy and because of His great love for us, made us alive through Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-5). He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we could become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). God made Him (Jesus) to be the propitiation* for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10). The apostle Peter wrote,

He himself [Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

1 Peter 2:24

I think we are getting a visual depiction of that here with this photograph. What we are seeing is an illustration of Jesus taking the punishment that we deserve - the lightning bolt of God's wrath, if you will - upon Himself.

Is this a perfect picture of the gospel? No. But it does serve to make us pause and reflect on what Jesus did accomplish for us on the cross, so take a few minutes today as you reflect on this picture and thank Jesus for taking the punishment that we deserved upon himself and becoming the propitiation for our sins. And if you have never repented of your sins and placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ today would be a good day to do that as well.


*Propitiation is the Greek word hilasmos, which means to make reconciliation, or to pay the necessary price for the expiation and removal of the sins of the people.