Justification in Relation to the Spiritual and Physical Deaths of Jesus Christ (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)

Doctrinal Bible Church

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Wednesday July 12, 2023

Justification Series: Justification in Relation to the Spiritual and Physical Deaths of Jesus Christ

Lesson # 7

The apostle Paul teaches in Romans 3:25 that the voluntary substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross is the basis for justification since His unique spiritual and physical deaths on the cross propitiated or satisfied the demands of God’s holiness, which required that sin be judged.

Romans 3:21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (NIV84)

“The blood of Christ” does not refer to the literal blood of Christ but is part of a representative analogy between the physical death of the animal sacrifice in the Mosaic Law and the spiritual and physical deaths of Christ.

The animal blood was the means of teaching the doctrine of redemption in the Old Testament (Ex. 12:7; 12-13; Heb. 9:22).

The animal sacrifice is a “representative” analogy in which the physical death of the animal on the altar represents the spiritual and physical deaths of Christ on the cross.

A “representative” analogy is the physical death of the animal on the altar representing the spiritual and physical deaths of Christ on the cross.

Often in the New Testament, when the word “death” is used for Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, the word contains the figure of speech called “heterosis of number,” which means that the singular form of a word is put for the plural form of the word.

The New Testament writers use this figure many times when referring to the death of Jesus Christ on the cross indicating that when they are speaking of this death, they are referring to both His spiritual and physical deaths on the cross.

This is indicated by the fact that the first Adam died first spiritually as a result of his disobedience in the Garden of Eden and then physically.

Therefore, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ had to die spiritually first and then physically to negate the fall of Adam and to reconcile the first Adam and his progeny, i.e. the human race to a holy God.

His spiritual death was “unique” in that He suffered spiritual death as a “sinless” human being whereas every member of the human race suffers spiritual death the moment they are born into the world and His physical death was “unique” in that He died physically of His own volition.

The Lord Jesus Christ did “not” die from suffocation or exhaustion, nor did He bleed to death, or die of a broken heart but rather He died unlike any person in history, namely by His own volition according to John 10:18.

Our Lord’s spiritual death is recorded in Matthew 27:46.

Matthew 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (NIV84)

When the Lord Jesus Christ cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He was experiencing spiritual death meaning that He lost fellowship with His Father.

In John 19:30, the Lord triumphantly said, “It is finished” while He was still alive and which statement refers to the payment of our sins.

Therefore, it was His spiritual death that was the payment for our sins and not His physical death since the consequences of the human race possessing a sin nature and committing personal sins is spiritual death.

Our Lord suffered the loss of fellowship with the Father during those last three hours of darkness on the cross so that we might never suffer the second death in the eternal lake of fire, which is eternal loss of fellowship with God.

Therefore, God the Father considers Christ’s spiritual death to be the believer’s since this death dealt with the believer’s problem of spiritual death.

Every person that is born into the world is physically alive yet spiritually dead and possesses a sin nature as a result of God imputing Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden to his posterity, i.e. the human race.

The fact that our Lord’s spiritual death was the payment for our sins and not His literal blood is illustrated in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (NIV84)

“The suffering of His soul” refers to the intense suffering of our Lord’s human soul as a result of suffering the loss of fellowship with His Father on the cross and experiencing spiritual death as a perfect sinless human being.

This suffering no angel or man will ever be able to identify with since no angel or man has kept themselves experientially sinless and is God and notice that Isaiah says that the anguish of the Son’s soul while experiencing spiritual death “satisfied” the Father, which refers to propitiation.

The greatest suffering our Lord endured on the cross was “not” the physical and mental torture of the cross but rather when He lost of fellowship with His Father during those last three hours on the cross as a result of receiving the imputation of the sins of the entire world by the justice of God the Father.

The physical suffering that our Lord endured through the scourging and beatings at the hands of the Jews and Romans as well as the crucifixion itself were in fact part of His bearing the judgment for our sins.

Remember, the unbeliever will suffer eternity in the Lake of Fire in a resurrection body according to Daniel 12:1, Romans 2:7, Revelation 20:11-15 and many other passages and this suffering is not only spiritual death but also physical suffering.

Thus, since our Lord died spiritually so that no human being will be separated from God for all of eternity in the Lake of Fire so Christ suffered the physical torture so that no human being will suffer physically forever in the Lake of Fire.

Our Lord’s loss of fellowship with His Father during those last three hours in darkness on the cross was infinitely more painful to our Lord than the physical suffering He had endured and was enduring.

Our Lord’s loss of fellowship with His Father during those last three hours in darkness on the cross was valued infinitely more by the Father than the shedding of His literal blood or His physical suffering.

This is not to say that the Father did not value the physical suffering of His Son, or His literal blood, which was sinless, He did, but literal blood though sinless cannot resolve man’s problem of separation from God under spiritual death.

A sinless human being suffering the loss of fellowship with the Father was the penalty that had to be paid in order to redeem human souls from the curse of Adam’s sin of disobedience and spiritual death.

During the last three hours on the cross, God the Father imputed every sin in human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union.

Consequently, Christ voluntarily suffered the penalty for this imputation as our Substitute, which was spiritual death (2 Cor. 5:21).

During the last three hours on the cross, God the Father credited to His Son something, which did not belong to Him, namely the sins of the entire world-past, present and future!

When the sins of mankind were imputed to our Lord, the justice of God took action and pronounced a guilty verdict.

Therefore, when Christ was receiving the imputation of the sins of the world, God was not projecting into the soul of our Lord the sins of the world, nor does imputation put Him into contact with sin.

This imputation made the Lord a curse for us and set Him up to receive the penalty for our sins, which is spiritual death, i.e. separation from God.

When Christ cried “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He was suffering the “consequences” for our sins, which was separation from the Father and was “not” coming into contact with our sins, nor was He becoming literal sin.

Therefore, Jesus Christ died spiritually meaning that He was separated from His Father in the sense that He lost fellowship with His Father during those last three hours on the cross.

He suffered this spiritual death so that no member of the human race should have to for all of eternity and thus, the believer is identified with our Lord’s spiritual death since this death spared the believer from the second death in the eternal lake of fire.

The physical death of our Lord is recorded in the Gospels (Matthew 27:47-50; Mark 15:22-40; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:16-30).

The Lord Jesus Christ did “not” die from suffocation or exhaustion, nor did He bleed to death, or die of a broken heart but rather He died unlike any person in history, namely by His own volition.

Our Lord’s voluntary physical death was another indication to those observing Him at the cross that He was indeed the Son of God.

He died like no other man in history, namely, of His own choosing and this is why the centurion stated that our Lord was the Son of God.

Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. (NASB95)