The question presented as the title is one of the central questions of Christianity. 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The heart of evangelical Christian doctrine regarding what Jesus accomplished on the cross is penal substitutionary atonement. This means that Jesus paid the penalty that we owed God by dying the death we deserved to die in our place as our substitute in order to bring human beings separated from God by sin back into a relationship with God. There are various theories of the atonement that are debated by theologians, but I believe it is better to see penal substitutionary atonement as the heart of the cross but see also that Jesus accomplished several other wonderful things for us through His death. My desire in writing this is to help us see biblically that penal substitutionary atonement is true, see several things that Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, and see what this means to our lives. I believe that understanding what Jesus did for us on the cross will radically change our lives.
So, why am I writing this now? One reason is that tomorrow (April 14, 2017) is good Friday so this is a spiritual exercise for me that I hope will be helpful to others also. However, it was also prompted by an article entitled, “It’s time to end the hands-off attitude to substitutionary atonement,’ written by Chuck Queen and originally published by Baptist News Global. In this article, Mr. Queen asserts, “It [substitutionary atonement] is such a staple in many Baptist churches that pastors, even though they don’t believe it themselves; refuse to touch it. I believe, however, we have to try. There are serious flaws with the theory.” Also, shortly after this, a college student in our church came to me and asked me a question about something one of her professors had taught them that was essentially the same position as is being espoused in the aforementioned article. So to some degree, this is my response to Mr. Queen’s article and the denial of substitutionary atonement in general. I hope it is a helpful service to our church and also the larger body of Christ. In the first paragraph, Mr. Queen says, “Most members in most Baptist churches across the country don’t know it as theory; they believe it as gospel.” This is true because it is the gospel. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 says, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” This is not about debating theological theories, disputing over gray areas, or arguing about secondary matters. This issue is a matter of salvation so it is of eternal importance.
I want to share Mr. Queen’s position, primarily by quoting from his article, and then attempt to present what I believe is the true Scriptural teaching as I outlined in the first paragraph. To his credit, he does a good job of accurately presenting the evangelical doctrine of the atonement before disagreeing with it. Of course, I encourage you to read his article for yourself. Here are what I see as the key points of his disagreement with penal substitutionary atonement and then the idea he presents in its place. So, he says,
-“Many Christians believe this to be the gospel truth. To deny this truth is to deny Christ. But this theory of the redemptive significance of Jesus’ death is seriously flawed. The major problem with substitutionary atonement is the way it imagines God. This interpretation of Jesus’ death makes God the source of redemptive violence. God required/demanded a violent death for atonement to be made. God required the death of an innocent victim in order to satisfy God’s offended sense of honor or pay off a penalty that God imposed. What kind of justice or God is this? Would a loving parent make forgiveness for the child conditioned upon a violent act?”
-“Another problem with substitutionary atonement is that it reduces salvation to a legal transaction that has nothing to do with the actual transformation of the individual. When a person “believes” in this arrangement (accepts Christ as personal savior) the believer is forgiven all sin and justified (acquitted and declared righteous) before God.”
-“Perhaps the first step in dethroning such a terrible doctrine is to help Christians realize that the sacrificial language utilized in the New Testament are symbols and metaphors, not to be taken in any literal sense.”
-“God offered Jesus up only in the sense that he sent Jesus to be his agent for mercy and justice in the world. We (human powers) killed Jesus. Jesus bore our sins on the cross in the sense that he, as the Son of Man, as the representative human being, bore the hate and animosity of the world in his service to God. He became a scapegoat to end scapegoating, to expose the folly and evil of scapegoating any human being. He became the lightning rod where the pent up oppositional energy of the powers that be (the world) became focused. In bearing the sin — the hate, evil and animosity of the world — he exposed it and exhausted it, thus overcoming it.”
-“Paul’s sacrificial metaphors took preference over Jesus’ life and teachings because Paul’s sacrificial metaphors could more easily be adapted to the interests of the empire. The Abba of Jesus, the loving, caring, merciful Father/Mother was replaced as the dominant image of God with a God of wrath who demanded the violent death of a sinless substitute as a ransom for sinners. The nonviolent God of Jesus, however, is incompatible with a God who makes a horrendous act of violence a divinely required act of atonement. Jesus didn’t die because God needed a sacrifice. Jesus died because the powers that be had him killed. But in a symbolic way, he bore the suffering, hate and evil of the world. We are called to do the same.”
Is this true or does the Bible actually teach substitutionary atonement? Let’s do a brief survey of the Scriptures, beginning with the Old Testament. Jesus said, “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me” (Luke 24:44). In various ways in the Old Testament, Jesus is foreshadowed and prophesied to be the sacrifice for our sins.
1. After the Fall as recorded in Genesis 3, God killed an innocent animal to clothe the guilty (3:21). This is a picture of the cross.
2. The Passover (Exodus 11-13): Let me quote from John Stott’s classic book, The Cross Of Christ, to explain this point. He writes, “The Passover story is a self-disclosure of the God of Israel in three roles. First, Yahweh revealed himself as the Judge….Second, Yahweh revealed himself as the Redeemer….Third, Yahweh revealed himself as Israel’s covenant God. He had redeemed them to make them his own people.” We clearly see this as fulfilled in Jesus because John the Baptist said, “”Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Paul wrote, “For indeed, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). Stott goes on to write, “…It is equally clear to us who see the fulfillment of the Passover in the sacrifice of Christ. First, the Judge and Savior are the same person. It was the God who ‘passed through’ Egypt to judge the firstborn, who ‘passed over’ Israelite homes to protect them. We must never characterize the Father as Judge and the Son as Savior. It is one and the same God who through Christ saves us from himself. Second, salvation was (and is) by substitution. The only firstborn males who were spared were those in whose families a firstborn lamb had died instead. Third, the lamb’s blood had to be sprinkled after it had been shed. There had to be an individual appropriation of the divine provision. God had to ‘see the blood’ before he would save the family. Fourth, each family rescued by God was thereby purchased for God. Their whole life now belonged to him. So does ours. And consecration leads to celebration.”
3. The Sacrificial System: Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” John Stott writes of this, “Three important affirmations about blood are made in this text. First, blood is the symbol of life…Second, blood makes atonement, and the reason for its atoning significance is given in the repetition of the word life…T.J. Crawford expressed it well: ‘The text, then, according to its plain and obvious import, teaches the vicarious nature of the rite of sacrifice. Life was given for life, the life of the victim for the life of the offerer, indeed the life of the innocent victim for the life of the sinful offerer.’ Third, blood was given by God for this atoning purpose. ‘I have given it to you, he says, ‘to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.’ So we are to think of the sacrificial system as God-given, not of human origin, and of the individual sacrifices not as a human device to placate God but as a means of atonement provided by God himself. This Old Testament background helps us to understand two crucial texts in the letter to the Hebrews. The first is that ‘without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22), and the second that ‘it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’ (Hebrews 10:4). No forgiveness without blood meant no atonement without substitution. There had to be life for life or blood for blood. But the Old Testament blood sacrifices were only shadows, the substance was Christ.”
4. Psalm 22: The 22nd Psalm is a Messianic psalm that presents several specific prophecies regarding the crucifixion of Christ (and crucifixion had not even been invented yet). Jesus quoted the first part of verse 1 from the cross when He said, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” This shows us that Jesus was not only forsaken by people, but He was also forsaken by His Father for our sakes. The only reason that the Father would have forsaken Him is that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
5. Isaiah 53: Verses 4-6 say, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by 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.” This is as clear an expression of penal substitutionary atonement as can be found in the Bible.
What about the New Testament? Here is a brief overview of the explicit New Testament teaching regarding penal substitutionary atonement.
1 Peter 2:24a says, “Who Himself [Jesus] bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” Hebrews 10:28a says, “So Christ was offered once [meaning ‘once for all’] to bear the sins of many.” Ephesians 5:2 says, “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” 1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” Romans 5:6-8 says, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die, but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In Wuest’s Word Studies From The Greek New Testament, Kenneth Wuest writes of these verses, “Paul now speaks of a demonstration of God’s love for mankind in that Christ died for the ungodly. When sinners were in the condition in which they were powerless for good, He died for (huper) them. The preposition huper means ‘for the sake of, in behalf of, instead of.’ In John 11:50, we have, ‘It is expedient for you that one man should die (huper) instead of the people and not that the whole nation should perish,’ and in Galatians 3:13, ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse (huper) instead of us.’ Dana and Mantey in their Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament say, ‘In both of these passages the context clearly indicates that substitution is meant.’ Thus our Lord died instead of us, taking our penalty, and in behalf of us, in that His death was in our interest.” These are just a few examples that show the clear New Testament teaching of penal substitutionary atonement. This had to happen for atonement to occur because Genesis 2:16-17 says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’.” Romans 6:23a says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Death is the just penalty for sin against a holy God. In order to be holy, righteous, just, and true to His Word, God the Creator and righteous Judge of the universe, had to impose the sentence. But because He is also loving, merciful, gracious, and kind; God took on humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, the God-Man, and died as our personal substitute making atonement for our sins so God can justly justify sinners. Therefore, we worship our great God and King as perfectly and simultaneously just, holy, loving, merciful, and gracious!
So, in his penal substitutionary atonement, what did Jesus actually accomplish for us on the cross? Remember these are not competing theories but complementary pictures of the accomplishment of the atonement. They are all true.
1. Jesus is our new-covenant sacrifice: 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Hebrews 9:11-12 says, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” Hebrews 8-10 teach us that Jesus is the head of a New Covenant and the promises, prophecies, and pictures of the Old Covenant are fulfilled in Him. Under the New Covenant, we do not need a priest because Jesus is our Great High Priest. We no longer need to offer blood sacrifices because Jesus is our once for all perfect sacrifice. We do not need a temple because Jesus is our Temple. We do not need to celebrate the Passover because Jesus is our Passover.
2. Jesus is our propitiation: Scripture repeatedly tells us that God hates sin and is righteously angry with sinners on whom He pours out His wrath. John MacArthur explains the various aspects of God’s wrath in this way:
A. Eternal wrath-hell
B. Eschatological wrath-final Day of the Lord
C. Cataclysmic wrath-flood, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
D. Consequential wrath-principal of sowing and reaping
E. The wrath of abandonment-removing restraint and letting people go in their sins
Propitiation is the fact that the wrath of God was diverted from us to Jesus when He died as our sacrifice on the cross (Romans 3:23-25, Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10). For example, 1 John 2:2 says, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Romans 5:9 says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Therefore, we are now beloved children of the Father (Romans 8:14-17) who do not have to live in fear of God being angry with us because “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). All of the wrath and condemnation that was destined for us and deserved by us was absorbed by Jesus on the cross.
3. Jesus is our justifier: Romans 3:26 says, “To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God is totally just and cannot overlook sin. Sin must be punished, and the punishment for sin is death. Thankfully, God is also patient, merciful, gracious, and forgiving. Therefore, the way that He justly justifies sinners is through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Justify means to declare righteous. It is an instantaneous judicial act. It is our standing before God. He forgives us of all sin; past, present, and future in Christ.
4. Jesus is our righteousness: This is a righteousness that is given by grace as a gift. It is an imputed righteousness (see Romans 4) and not an infused righteousness. On the cross what Martin Luther liked to call the “great exchange” occurred. Jesus took our sin and gave us his righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be in for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In other words, on the cross, our sin was transferred to Jesus and his righteousness was transferred to us. Therefore, we do not have to live in guilt and shame any more because “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
5. Jesus is our redemption: We are enslaved by sin, but Jesus died to buy us back and bring us back to God (Galatians 4:1-7) and enable us to live as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” Titus 2:14 says, “Who [Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” We can now live in freedom because “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
6. Jesus is our victory: Colossians 2:13-15 says, “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Through his atoning death and glorious resurrection; Jesus defeated Satan, death, and hell. We can now live out of His victory.
7. Jesus is our expiation: This is pictured by the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. It is the reality that God not only forgives our sins, but He also cleanses us from the defilement of our sins and the sins which are committed against us.
8. Jesus is our example: Jesus is our example, both in His life and His death. He repeatedly invites us to follow Him. As disciples, we are to grow to be more and more like Him. He is our example in times of blessing and times of hardship. A prosperity gospel cannot be reconciled with the cross. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
9. Jesus is our reconciler. Sin separates us from God our Creator (Isaiah 59:2). In his atonement, Jesus brings us back to God and enables us to be in relationship with Him again. Atonement as been expressed as at-one-ment. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” Romans 5:10 says, “For if when 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.”
10. Jesus is the revelation of God’s love: John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 5:8 tells us that God “demonstrates,” which means proves, His love for us because Jesus died for us while we were sinners. John Stott writes, “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross’.”
11. Jesus is the Head of the Church: This is what Colossians 1:18 tells us. Acts 20:28 says, “Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” Jesus did not just die for us as individuals but also to create the Church, the family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Ephesians 2:16 says, “And that He might reconcile them both [Jews and Gentiles] to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”
The cross is our only hope for salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” The cross is humbling because it exposes our spiritual bankruptcy. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit [those who admit their spiritual bankruptcy]; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Philippians 3:3 says, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” We trust Jesus and not ourselves. We worship Him. The glory belongs to Him and not us. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 says, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God-and righteousness and sanctification and redemption-that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord’.” The cross is also the basis of our sanctification (see Romans 6). We are set free from sin-not to sin. When we are saved, we are regenerated, given new hearts, and indwelled by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5-6). The gospel enables us to change and live new lives from the inside out.
Let me conclude with this quotation from the Apostle Paul. In Galatians 6:14, he wrote, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
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