FreeTruth

God's ways are not our ways. He does things we can not even imagine through means we cannot even conceive.

That's why Peter runs into a mental/emotional buzz saw in Matthew 16:21-23. Peter simply had no category for what Jesus says in Matthew 16:21. The idea that his Savior-King-Redeemer would die was inconceivable. How could a dead Messiah deliver?

Mortified to the point of near apoplexy, Peter presumes to rebuke the Master for His self-imposed death sentence. "Jesus," said the apostle, "what in the world are you thinking? Get such thoughts out of your mind! You will not, you cannot die! You are, after all, the Messiah-King-Deliverer!" He spoke from real, but misguided love.

Peter's problem was one of selective Bible reading. He'd joined his Jewish contemporaries in loving the Old Testament texts predicting a mighty Deliverer-King, while largely ignoring the Isaiah 53 type texts about a Suffering Servant-Messiah. Like all humans, he wanted deliverance and salvation with no cost, no sorrow, no pain, no suffering.

He had no sense that before he or any sinner could enjoy God's salvation God would have to atone for man's sin. There is no kingdom of saints unless there is an atonement for sinners. Before the Messiah could rule as King, He had to die as Lamb.

Yes indeed--God's plan was to save through suffering and death.

So I repeat: God's ways are not our ways. He does things that we can not even imagine through means we cannot even conceive.

Satan knows this better than anyone. So that's why he got into Peter's brain and planted this rebuke. Satan hoped to derail the plan of God through the ignorance of man. He hoped that just maybe, Jesus might hear Peter's words, and buy into the ignorance.

But Jesus would have none of it. He told Satan to get lost, set Peter's mind on course, and kept right on walking toward Calvary; no hesitation, no slacking of His pace, no turning back.

Friends, God has done what we cannot imagine (saving us for eternal bliss) through means we cannot even imagine (the bloody accursed cross). And it happened because Jesus sensed Satan's lie in Peter's love, and commanded the enemy be gone.

Then He marched on to Golgotha with a cross-beam on His shoulders and our forgiveness in His heart.

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Lent

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities."

How could God the Father have killed His own Son, let alone delight to do so? What compelling purpose would warrant this action of a seemingly utter betrayal? When Jesus was baptized, didn't the Father say, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17)? What compelled the Father to do this? And what compelled the Son to submit to this?

The purpose that the Father and the Son agreed to was the redemption of sinners in such a way that would magnify God's justice, righteousness and glory. This is powerfully expressed in Romans 3:23-26:

"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. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

This passage explains why God the Father crushed His Son, and why He delighted to crush His Son, and why the Son agreed to be crushed. Hebrews 12:2 says, "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross."

The cross was something that the Father and the Son agreed to, for the purpose of displaying God's justice and displaying God's marvelous grace. This was done "so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

Romans 5:1 tells us how that we become "justified" before the Lord by faith in Christ and His work on Calvary in our place for salvation, "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The love between the Father and the Son is immeasurable. It is infinite. The Father delights in His Son, who is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:3). The Father looks upon His Son and sees the radiance of His own glory, and He delights in Him.

God the Father is satisfied in the work of His Son, and the Son Himself is satisfied. The justice and wrath of God against sin and sinners was fully satisfied by the suffering of Jesus upon the cross of Calvary, and thus Isaiah tells us that the Lord would "see it and be satisfied."

by Sesky Paul

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Guest Post, Justification, Lent

It's a familiar story, told in this instance by singer-songwriter Michael Card in his book, A Violent Grace.

A friend of mine and his buddy were sitting together in a foxhole during the Korean War. Their patrol had been assigned to sweep for concealed mines. As they sat together, sharing a candy bar, an enemy hand grenade flew through the air and landed between them. Without hesitation, my friend's partner threw aside the last piece of candy bar and flung himself on the grenade. His courage saved my friend's life.

Card adds this thought: "Jesus fell on the grenade, as it were, for me." And not just for Michael Card, but for me, and for you.

"The atonement is the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation" (Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine). Simply put, Jesus Christ took our place.

Perhaps nowhere is this truth seen more clearly than in Isaiah 53:4-6. Take a minute to read the passage, preferably aloud. Notice the number of times in these three verses that Jesus absorbs the punishment we deserved.

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; ...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.... (A)nd the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Now read it again, this time putting your name in wherever there is a pronoun, "our" or "we" or "us." The truth is literally hammered home time after time: it was we who deserved to suffer and die, but Christ took our place.

This is so much more than simply saying, Jesus died for our sins. As true as that is, it fails to capture the depth and extent of the atonement's effect. Jesus Christ felt the weight of "our griefs and... our sorrows."

Why do we grieve, and why are we sorrowful? Because of sin. Because we mess up our lives by our own sin, and we suffer when sinned against. Jesus knows this, and carries that burden for us. In the process, "he was wounded" and "he was crushed."

Recall the account of his humiliation and torture and agonizing death. This was the eternal Son of God undergoing everything that I deserved and nothing that he deserved. The grenade he fell on had my name on it, and would have separated me from God forever, but Jesus willingly took that on himself.

"Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." Thanks to the atonement, peace is now available--peace with God, which is our greatest need, and peace with those around us. What a gift! What grace and mercy! We have peace. We have healing. (See Matthew 8:17 for the New Testament commentary on verse 4.)

And what is our "contribution"? Isaiah answers that question in verse 6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way." Every one--without exception. It is our sin that made the atonement necessary. Praise God for the merit of Christ, who alone could have earned our salvation!

by Tim Bowditch

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Gospel, Guest Post, Lent

If you know the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Christ, especially as found in Matthew, a number of verses from Psalm 22 will sound strikingly familiar. The very first verse--"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"--was quoted by Jesus as he hung on the cross (Matt. 27:46). Verses 7 and 8 foreshadow the taunting by the chief priests and others (Matt. 27:39 ff.). Obviously these are unmistakable prophetic words.

There are others: the description of the soldiers gambling for Christ's clothing in verse 18 (see Matt. 27:35), and even the imagery in verses 14 and 15, which could easily apply to a thirsty Jesus hanging in agony with his weakened shoulders dislocated from bearing his weight--all these details bring to mind the picture of Christ in the six hours on that day we call Good Friday. What is amazing is that the psalm was written in about 1000 B.C., hundreds of years before the Romans would invent crucifixion!

Referring to this psalm, the ESV Study Bible has this to say:

(I)n view of its prominent place in the crucifixion story, Christian readers have found in it a description of the sufferings of Jesus. Many Christians have taken it as a straight prediction of Jesus' sufferings, as if the primary function of the psalm was to foretell the work of the Savior; others have read it as a lament in its OT context, with a "fuller meaning" revealed by Jesus' use of it. It is better to see the psalm as providing a lament for the innocent sufferer, and then to see how all the Gospels use this to portray Jesus as the innocent sufferer par excellence.

Regardless of how we approach the question of interpretation, the point is that there is something going on here that mere "coincidence" cannot explain. As believers in Christ, we can take from this a few things:

1. The Word of God is utterly dependable. It spoke prophetically of the crucifixion a millennium before God the Son would assume a physical body and undergo the agony of the cross. Therefore, it is just as dependable when it comes to prophetic words that have yet to be realized. The description of the return of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 4 would be but one example. Jesus Christ is coming again.

2. When we suffer, we can know that God is "in it" for our good. He was most certainly in the sufferings of Jesus, and he is in our sufferings as well. He intends to work in them for our good.

3. Christ died for us as our Older Brother. There is another statement that is quoted, not in the Gospels, but in Hebrews. Psalm 22:22 ("I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.") appears in Hebrews 2:12, and that quotation comes on the heels of these words: "That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers." So we can know that Christ's becoming our older brother was never far from his mind, even as he hung dying for us. Understanding that, we can rejoice in the exclamation of verse 26: "May your hearts live forever!"

by Tim Bowditch

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Guest Post, prophecy fulfilled, The Love of God

In Genesis 3:15 remarkable words are spoken at the dawn of time. This is the first Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter text all rolled into one.

By all appearances in that moment Satan had won. The power of hell appeared to have mutinied successfully against heaven, while taking the human race with him. He'd seduced Adam and Eve, and effectively gotten them banished from Eden.

But in Genesis 3:15 God gives a promise spelling the Devil's demise, which simultaneously sustained believers' hopes for millennia--all the way through the moment when it was fulfilled in the birth, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. The promise is called in theology: "The Proto-Evangelium": the first gospel. It is the first heralding of a Saving Redeemer to come.

But this is also the first announcement that the Savior would suffer. Satan would attack the woman's offspring so fiercely that he would succeed in "bruising" or crushing His heel, speaking of a crippling, near mortal wound against Eve's seed. A child born to woman would experience a severe wound that would appear to spell ultimate defeat.

But in the end the Child would bruise or crush Satan's head! Here is a promise that a Child would be born that would experience apparent defeat only to turn around and gain ultimate triumph. That does sound familiar, now doesn't it?

Thousands of years later a Child was born to a woman; one who would redeem His people from Satan's grasp and hell's dominion. This Child would appear to be defeated on a cross, but then would triumph through the empty tomb. Satan would crush His heel; He would crush Satan's head. He came to destroy the devil and death, and that's exactly what He did (Hebrews 2:14, 15).

Friends, this text shows us that the sufferings of Christ came as no surprise to our Lord. Long before they happened He knew they would happen. He knew what would befall Him, and He didn't flinch.

History is not a story of a God surprised by human choices or sins. Jesus did not--as some have suggested--come to earth expecting a warm welcome only to be rejected. Rather, history is the unfolding of an eternal plan of God in which He Himself would come, knowing He would endure infinite unspeakable sorrow, that He might redeem us from eternal unspeakable sorrow. He knew His heel would be crushed, but He stepped into time and space to endure it all nonetheless.

Calvary was not an afterthought; it was the plan. It was not a mistake; it was exactly what God had in mind. And because it was, we have a Savior.

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Gospel, Lent, The Work of Christ

Earlier today as I was reading the Word I came again to that most astonishing text which is Galatians 3:10-14. It seems to me that, despite the protestations of many to the contrary, the meaning of the text is plain, and is able to be summed up as follows:
1. Those who disobey any part of God's Law are law-breakers.
2. Every law-breaker is subject to a penalty, a curse from God. Those who violate God's Law in any way at all are subject to its damning judgment (i.e.-they are declared guilty and worthy of severe penalty and punishment, being placed under the condemnation of God's wrath and subject to the very opposite of His blessing).
3. There they (we) all remain helpless in themselves (ourselves) to do anything to avoid the curse, because even if from this moment on we were to fully keep God's Law, we can never undo the fact that we have already been Law-breakers. We can do nothing to get out from under the curse of God.
4. There is One Who has been born of woman and under the Law (Galatians 4:4, 5) who has by virtue of His death become a curse (i.e.-became accursed) for us, bearing in His own Person and body on the cross the full curse and wrath due to our sin, that the curse may be lifted from us.
5. Now in the place of God's cursing we receive God's blessing (Galatians 3:14).
6. This means that Christ was cursed that we might be blessed. He got what we deserved that we might receive what He deserved.

This text is simple profound stunning gospel. It is essential Christianity. It is the single message that gets as close to the heart of what our faith is about as any text anywhere. Take away the truth of the substitutionary atoning death of Christ, and you take away the gospel; you take away everything.

Nowadays there are many who are attacking this truth as if it were an antiquated quaint embarrassing relic from primitive times. The attacks are sometimes subtle (like with those who for church growth purposes tell us to remove references to sin and blood and the like, or like those who say that the gospel is not so much about personal salvation and forgiveness of sins as it is about being a part of the kingdom of God); they are sometimes brazen (like those who simply say that such talk of atonement and cursing and substitutionary death are offensive carry-overs from primitive superstitious days).

Let me say this: if the death of Jesus was not to take away sin through blood atonement and curse-bearing sacrifice, then what in the world was it for? Don't tell me that it was to be a model of love. Don't tell me that it was to be a model of humility. Don't tell me that it was to show how willing people should be to suffer. That is unadulterated nonsense.

Christ Jesus died in my place for my sins to remove the curse hanging over my head. He was damned on the cross that I would not have to be damned forever. He was forsaken of God under a curse so severe and real that it was sufficient to guarantee that I would never be forsaken of God under any curse at all.

Here I stand; where else can I stand? Take this away and we have no hope, no faith, and nothing else to say. Embrace it and you have every reason to rejoice, break forth and shout aloud for joy (Galatians 4:27).

Labels: Atonement, Cross Centered Living, Death of Christ, Gospel

As promised I have a few words from another to follow up yesterday's post. Please read with astonishment and joy.

When Jesus took the curse upon himself, he so identified with our sin that he became a curse. God cut him off and justly so. This was an act of divine justice. At the moment that Christ took upon himself the sin of the world, he became the most grotesque, most obscene mass of sin in the history of the world. God is too holy to even look at iniquity. When Christ was hanging on the cross, the Father, as it were, turned his back on Christ. He removed his face. He turned out the lights. He cut off his Son. There was Jesus, who in human nature had been in a perfect, blessed relationship with God throughout his life. There was Jesus, the Son in whom the Father was well pleased. Now he hung in darkness, isolated from the Father, cut off from fellowship – fully receiving in himself the curse of God – not for his own sin but for the sin he willingly bore by imputation for our sake…I have heard many sermons about the physical pain of death by crucifixion. I’ve heard graphic descriptions of the nails and the thorns. Surely the physical agony of crucifixion was a ghastly thing. But there were thousands who died on crosses and may have had more painful deaths than that of Christ. But only one person has ever received the full measure of the curse of God while on a cross. I doubt that Jesus was even aware of the nails and the spear – he was so overwhelmed by the outer darkness. On the cross Jesus was in the reality of hell. He was totally bereft of the grace and the presence of God, utterly separated from all blessedness of the Father. He became a curse for us so that we someday will be able to see the face of God. So that the light of his countenance might fall upon us, God turned his back on his Son. No wonder Christ screamed. He screamed from the depth of his soul. How long did he have to endure it? We don’t know, but a second of it would have been of infinite value…Finally, Jesus cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). It was over. What was over? His life? The pain of the nails? No. It was the forsakenness that ended. The curse was finished (R.C. Sproul).

Friends: Behold the Lamb.

Labels: Atonement, Death of Christ, Gospel, Grace

When Paul adds in Philippians 2:8 that our Lord's death was "even the death of the cross", he was not simply adding an inconsequential historical piece of trivia; he was adding a detail with huge redemptive significance. In my message Sunday I highlighted the fact that the Bible goes out of its way to tell us, not only that Jesus died, but also the manner and place in which he died: on a cross.

Check out all the following texts and you'll discover that God is emphatic in telling us that the death of His Son was a public on-a-tree, up-in-the-air, for-all-eyes-to-see spectacle (Acts 5:30; 1 Peter 2:2; John 3:14; Psalm 22:16, 17; Zechariah 12:10; Romans 3:24, 25) . The Romans text actually uses a word (translated put forward in verse 25) which means to "set forth publicly" (TDNT). The NASB translates it "displayed publicly".

As I said Sunday, this public spectacle aspect of the death of Christ has redemptive relevance. That Christ did not die in secret or in an unseen and unknown place is essential to the meaning of his death. Both Deuteronomy 21:22, 23 and Galatians 3:10-14 make this clear. Both these texts reveal that His death on a tree (i.e.-on a cross) was meant to display that His death was an act of God in cursing human sin. Public hanging in execution was different from other executions like stoning. Those who were hung, were cursed of God (Deut. 21:22, 23).

This means that Christ became a curse--indeed the cursed of God--for us. I return to this even though I preached it just this past Sunday, because I want all who heard (and those who didn't) not to forget. Please consider this friends: God the Father and Son agreed that to redeem those loved by God, the Son would bear the curse of God for their sins.

We may find the language shocking and may even recoil as if it somehow overstates the matter, but it is accurate to say that on the cross, God damned Himself in His Incarnate Son so that He might be able to save His elect. These texts go out of their way to teach just that, and nothing less.

Tomorrow I'll give you a couple of quotes along these lines. For today, let's just ponder the matter ourselves. Those who deny or disdain the atoning and penal aspects of the cross (that is, those who deny that Jesus was actually bearing the penalty and punishment for human sin to appease the holy and just wrath of God over that sin) are not merely overlooking an irrelevant side-bar to the cross. They are missing the whole point.

Atonement, the propitiation of a holy and justly angry God, the substitution of a sinless Lamb for a sinful people; all this is the very heart and essence of the gospel. Take these away and we have nothing left. Keep these and we have everything.

O let us weep, and wonder, and be humbled, and be still and quiet at the foot of the Cross. Then let us sing and dance for joy.

Labels: Atonement, God's Love, Gospel, Grace

This past Sunday I walked an old path with the folks in my church; the path of the death of Christ, by which He took the curse due to our sins upon Himself, by dying in our place. I meant to add a few thoughts regarding a perspective on the atonement that is gaining footing among some in the emergent church movement and other contexts.

It may be surprising to some that the teaching that God's Son was punished for the sins of others is not popular among many--even many who claim the name "Christian". In fact this teaching, which Christians have long called the substitutionary vicarious, atoning, propitiating death of Christ, is meeting with open horror and disdain.

Some suggest that the idea that God would punish His Son for our sins is equivalent to "cosmic child abuse". Friends, such a perspective reflects at the very least a woeful ignorance of basic Bible truth. For example, one fact that the Word repeats often is that while the death of Christ was God's way of punishing our sins without punishing us, it was not a unilateral act of the Father forced onto the Son. Philippians 2:7, 8 makes it clear that the Son humbled Himself and offered Himself for us. In John 10:17, 18 Jesus tells us that He laid down His life of His own accord.

This simple Bible observation--which any careful reader of the Word can see--makes the charge of "cosmic child abuse" patently absurd. The death of Christ for His people's sins was neither coerced nor forced nor imposed on the Son by the Father. It was a voluntary act of the Son in cooperation with the Father, born out of the Triune God's amazing love for His people. Any who miss this point simply are not reading their Bible's closely at all. Worse they are insulting God, insinuating things evil to the Almighty Father in heaven. At best those who make this charge are missing out on one of the sweeter truths of our faith; at worst they are slandering God out of ignorance.

O my friends: Jesus died for our sins means exactly what it means. We are sinners deserving to die under the eternal curse of God's judgment, but Jesus volunteered to take our place becoming a curse for us. Anything but cosmic child abuse, this is the ultimate expression of Divine love--from the Father to us, and from the Father to the Son in that the Son is now exalted in the place of highest honor to reward His high and infinite sacrifice of love for our sakes.

Let us not slander God with words ill-spoken. instead let us worship God for love beyond degree.

Labels: Atonement, Emergent Church, Gospel