Canons of Dort--Atonement

For the month of October, I thought it would be interesting to pause in our consideration of the Belgic Confession and spend some time looking at the Canons of Dort leading up to Reformation Sunday. Having looked at the first head of doctrine, which teaches God’s exercise of His divine omniscience, His divine all knowledge, together with His omnipresence, God elects persons to salvation. God predestines those whom He has foreknown, and brings them into everlasting life.

We recall that our spiritual condition before God is one of divine punishment for our sin. We’ll look at this more closely next week when we consider man’s depravity, but the human condition, ever since Adam and Eve sinfully rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, is sinful. We naturally hate God and neighbour. The wages of sin is death.

But how can a good, just, and righteous God save sinners? Since all sinners deserve judgement and death, how is God’s righteous wrath atoned? How can we be set free from our sin? How can anyone, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), be saved? What do we need to understand about God?

God Is Supremely Merciful and Just (Art 1)

Article one of the second head of doctrine states that God is supremely merciful and just. A perennial difficulty within the church is striking a proper balance between God’s mercy and justice. Most often, churches will veer to one side or the other. In reality, we must be faithful to God’s Word, and hold them both, tightly!

God is just. As I mentioned last week, God would have been absolutely justified in immediately demanding the life of Adam and Eve. At any time in history, God is justified in destroying humanity, and all creation along with them. The wickedness in the days of Noah caused God to send a worldwide flood. Just a thought here. God destroyed the planet, covered it completely with water, and caused it to regrow into the beautiful earth we enjoy, work, and benefit from every day. Should we believe the worldview that says human beings are destroying the planet? Should we buy into the worldview that suggests human beings are a virus and the planet would be better off without us? Don’t for a moment be taken in by these ideas. They are contrary to God’s teaching in His Word. Human beings are created in God’s image and have great value—we are not a virus. Human beings can do many things, but I don’t believe we have the power to destroy the planet—simply because God has promised that season will follow after season until the end of the age.

Sinful man can and has done many destructive things. God in His Sovereign will sustains and upholds all creation, including humanity. Let us be faithful regents over God’s creation, taking care of His belongings, even as He takes care of us.

Now, getting back on point, God is justified in destroying all humanity, because those are the terms as he laid them out in Genesis 2:16-17 “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.’” God is supremely just. He will not let sin go unpunished. Numbers 14:18 states “‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’” Job 10:14 “If I sin, then You mark me, And will not acquit me of my iniquity.” Proverbs 19:9 “A false witness will not go unpunished, And he who speaks lies shall perish.” Jeremiah 30:11 “For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘to save you; Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, Yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’”

The Lord God is indeed just. But even more astounding is God’s mercy. Mercy is not what we could ever expect, except for the goodness of God. God is in His nature, His character, gracious, loving, kind (Psalm 103). This means that together with His justice, God would find a way to save sinners. God wasn’t content to leave human beings in their sinful state. He was not content to leave them in bondage and slavery to sin. He did not desire that all would be lost to everlasting punishment, but He determined to save some, by His grace.

Brothers and sisters, God is just and gracious. He is supremely merciful and just. We see His supreme mercy in our salvation.

Only an Eternal Being (Articles 2&3)

How then did God accomplish salvation? By what means do we see and know His mercy? The punishment for sin is death. The wages of sin is death. Only an eternal Being could pay for all the sins of humanity. Since we are unable to make this satisfaction on our own, or deliver ourselves from God’s wrath, He by His infinite mercy gave His only begotten Son for our Surety.

God gave us Himself. God gave us His Son. His only begotten, everlasting, eternal Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the righteousness apart from the law that is revealed—who was foretold by the Law and the Prophets (Rom 3:21). Jesus is the Messiah, the seed of Adam and Eve, promised in the Garden of Eden.

Now, what do we need to know about Jesus. Jesus is eternal. There never was a time when He wasn’t. John 1:1-2 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The wages of sin is death—everlasting death, eternal death, spiritual and physical death.

Jesus Christ had to be eternal, and as God’s only begotten—not made, not created, Son He is eternal, to pay the punishment of God’s eternal wrath. He willingly became the curse for us, standing in our place, and He perfectly made satisfaction for us. That is Jesus Christ offered Himself in our place. What we deserve because of sin—original and actual—is death. Jesus took our death upon Himself. He atoned, He propitiated, Himself for our sin.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—one God in three persons, created mankind in His image. In order to have God’s wrath against us, on account of our sin, atoned or propitiated—satisfied, appeased, paid, He graciously, mercifully allowed the sacrificial death of His son in our place so that we could be reconciled to Him.

In this, being freely justified by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, through faith, God demonstrates His righteousness. How did God do this? On account of the blood of the lamb of God, Jesus, God has passed over our sins.

Now, that phrase from Romans 3 should trigger a memory, it would have in Paul’s Jewish listeners. They celebrated the Passover every year. They knew and understood Paul’s reference to the blood that was put on the doorposts and lintels of every home in Egypt, on the night the angel of the Lord went through. Wherever the blood of the lamb was, the angel passed over. By faith they believed that the lamb’s blood would spare them. Then, when John saw Jesus coming to be baptised, he declared, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

By faith, we take the Lamb of God’s blood, not on our houses, but into our bodies through the sacrament of Lord’s Supper. Thus, when the angel of the Lord comes in wrath at the end of the age, all who believe will be spared by the blood of the lamb—who is in us, in our hearts! That’s our hope, that’s what we believe! The death of the Son of God is perfect, it is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world!

Rejection of Errors: Universalism (Paragraph 5)

Now in our day and age, not only are there claims of divine child abuse leveled against God the Father, there are all the other ridiculous notions concerning the Son. Such a claim is childish, and ill-reasoned. It is academically lazy, contemptuous and utterly disrespectful. But people who want to make much more of man, or really themselves, and less of Christ grab hold of it and other ideas.

The greatest affront to God’s justice is the concept of universalism. Universalism teaches that even if there is a concept of original sin, no one is worthy of eternal condemnation because of it. Rather, everyone is free from guilt of original sin.

This is akin to the teaching that all men are basically good, and that by their own effort, they can be saved or, forgiven. This teaches that God looks at, and sees someones intentions, and because people don’t mean to be bad, but intend to be good, therefore they should be saved.

From this, it logically flows that in addition to intentionality, there ought to be credit given for faith and faithfulness. Faith itself is the virtue, not the object of faith. So as long as one is faithful, or true to whatever it is they are worshipping, God will receive it as though it was rendered unto himself. This is how people justify being able to have fellowship with non-Christians, how they can make alliances with Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and people of any faith. It is in part an explanation for how the United Church of Canada can have a professing atheist as a pastor of one of their churches, for she is faithful in her disbelief that there is a God!

To all this nonsense, the Canons resolutely state that such opinion is repugnant to scripture which teaches that “among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” ( Eph 2:3).

Universalism sure sounds nice, doesn’t it? But it ignores the truth of the matter—no one is good. No one deserves to be saved. It is only by God’s grace in Christ Jesus through faith. It is God’s act, not ours. We were dead in our trespasses and sin, until we were made alive in Christ! To suggest anything else makes mockery of Christ’s incarnation, His perfectly obedient life, His willing sacrifice on the cross, bearing the full weight of God’s wrath, His death, His resurrection and His ascension. In this error, there is no assurance in Christ’s body.

Assurance in Christ’s Body: Definition of Atonement (Articles 8&9)

When the Apostle Paul went to Corinth, he “did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to (them) the testimony of God. For (he) determined not to know anything among (them) except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Brothers and sisters, this is our hope. We need look no where else. For in Christ alone we are saved.

We have assurance in Christ’s body for the atonement of our sin. Articles 8 and 9 describe it this way. God the Father determined our atonement according to His will and purpose. Our atonement extends to all the elect—again, we remember that we know we are the elect because we have the deposit of the Holy Spirit, who has brought us from death to life, and who enables us to produce fruit in keeping with the faith.

The Father bestows on the elect—on you and me, on all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation—the gift of justifying faith. It is a gift, freely given. By definition, gifts cannot be earned, only received. By faith we are justified, not by works, and we are brought to salvation. Christ by His blood on the cross effectually redeems us from out of every tribe, nation and language. He also gives us His Holy Spirit. His death purges us from all sin, original and actual, sins committed before we believed, and all after we believed. Through Christ, God the Father presents us spot and blemish free, to the enjoyment of His presence forever!

Where does this promise come from? It comes as a result of God’s everlasting love for His elect. We have been loved from eternity! By God’s power, He has accomplished this, destroying the gates of hell. He gathers the church out of every age and generation. Christ Himself is the foundation, having laid down His life for the elect. We are the bride of Christ, He is the bridegroom and He will come to bring us to Him at the end of the age.

Brothers and sisters, having heard God’s atonement in Christ, do you accept it? By faith, you can, God gives that gift to you. He has given Himself. It is like this: God the Father has given you His Word, who is Christ Himself, who gave His life, so that you can receive the Holy Spirit, who daily gives you the assurance of faith, who through all the highs and lows leads you perfectly, carefully showing you your sin, so that by confessing, repenting, you can turn and live wholly for Him, experiencing daily the power of Christ in you! Don’t delay, accept God’s gracious gift! Amen.