Being the Church - One in Faith: The work of Christ

The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil, so reconciling us with God. - Evangelical Alliance Statement of faith Article 6.

Last time we looked at the Person of Christ, His divine and human nature that co-exist in His person.

This week we look at the work of Christ, contingent upon the incarnation, and describing for us the ultimate reason for His coming to earth.

Let’s break it down into 3 parts...

I. SACRIFICE

The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross:

Atonement is the act by which God and man are brought together in personal relationship.

The term is derived from Anglo-Saxon words meaning “making at one,” hence “at-one-ment.”

It presupposes a separation or alienation that needs to be overcome if human beings are to know God and have fellowship with him. - see Rom 1-3

This, as we know from our studies in human nature is due to the fact that we are “born in sin and shapen in iniquity.”(Psa 51:5)

So, atonement becomes the means of reconciliation between God and people.

(i). Atonement in the Old Testament:

In the Old Testament as part of the sacrificial system most fully described as Leviticus 4-6 and 16

The Hebrew word for atone (כָּפַר, kaphar) conveys the idea of covering, both in the sense of covering to hide and also covering for someone guilty of an offense.

Atonement for sin was made usually by sacrificing an unblemished animal, although that is not always the case. (Note: sometimes money (Exod 30:14–16), prayer (Exod 32:30–33), the scapegoat (Lev 16:10), and incense (Num 16:46–47) are said to atone for sin under certain circumstances without requiring death).

(ii). Atonement in the New Testament:

Atonement is re-framed exclusively around the person and work of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

The concept of atonement is central but the word itself is never used in the New Testament. The Greek terms that come closest ἱλαστήριον, and ἱλάσκομαι, better translated “expiate” or “propitiate,” (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17).

The New Testament declares that Christ’s death is a once-and-for-all “sacrifice”, (see Heb 10:11-14; 2Cor 5:21)fulfilling and surpassing all other means humans had previously relied on to atone for sin.

No more animal death; no more money payments or offerings of incense or cleansing of temple furniture are required.

Jesus paid the ultimate and complete price; (Heb 9) - “now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Heb 9:27-28).

This took place “on the cross”,

which was the common Roman way of execution for non-Romans, and necessary as the means of execution because Jesus was prophesied to die on a “tree” - “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”(Gal 3:13).

Question 1 - John says: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”(1 John 3:16). How does this link betwen the sacrifice of Jesus for us and our willingness to sacrifice for fellow Christians, challenge our concept of being Church?

II. SUBSTITUTION

dying in our place, paying the price of sin

This is implied by atonement because the act of atonement was carried out by someone for someone else.

Paul captures this perfectly in Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

Note the language, the cross is not Christ’s idea alone but the initiative of the triune God who far from being in a perpetual rage over our sin, is seeking to undo the impact of the Fall and save guilty sinners.

God, as our Creator and our Judge, could have, in perfect justice, consigned us all to Hell, but instead, out of great love for us, He sent His Son to bear our sins and die in pur place. - John 3:16-18

James Denney said, 'If Christ died the death in which sin had involved us—if in His death He took the responsibility of our sins on Himself—no word is equal to this which falls short of what is meant by calling Him our substitute.'

Sadly this evangelical belief in SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT, has been more recently challenged not simply from Liberals but also from Popular speakers like Steve Chalke in “The Lost Message of Christ” and Rob Bell in “Love Wins”

They have argued that the view portrays God as a vengeful deity who needs to be placated by the death of an innocent victim.

They have dismissed this and referred to it crassly as “cosmic child abuse”. It is not surprising that this has also led them to deny the doctrine of Hell and the authority and infallibility of scripture.

This is certainly unbiblical; deeply unfortunate and frankly, for one who is not easily offended, as about offensive to me as it gets.

Those popular preachers and theologians who deny the idea of substitutionary atonement make a scholarly show of discussing at length various “models” of the atonement that have appeared in the history of the church: the penal substitution model, the Christus Victor model, the exemplary, moral model, the ransom model which states that we are held in the power of the devil until Christ died and freed us from his grip (see Mark 10:45;1 Cor 6:20) and so forth to give the impression that we take our pick from among these so-called “models.”

This is deeply flawed and misleading and it is a profound denial of the final authority of Scripture.

Why? Because it allows historical theology to trump Scripture suggesting that one model is to be preferred as summing up all that scripture teaches about the atonement which it does not; and that by adopting one model you can dismiss all other scriptures which speak in support of one of the other models.

It is also deeply misleading because all of the models mentioned above are valid ways to look at the atonement.

Christ’s death is a substitution, in which God’s wrath is turned away by the sacrifice of Jesus on the sinners behalf (see Romans 3:25; Rom 1:18;1 Thes 1:10) but his death is also an example of ransom from the grip of sin and the devil and of self-sacrifice that we are to learn from and it is also an indication that He is victorious over sin and death

We understand the atonement not by examining what various models say but by understanding all that the Bible says about the death of Christ! Choosing only one of them is being unfaithful to Scripture.

The New Testament is absolutely clear, “Christ died for our sins.” “He was delivered over to death for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom 4:25).

“Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6). He “gave himself for our sins, to rescue us from the present evil age” (Gal 1:4).

“Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Pet 3:18).

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36. (see also Ephesians 2:1-10).

“To be saved from our sins is to be saved not only from their chaining power but from their consequences–and the consequences are profoundly bound up with God’s solemn sentence, with God’s holy wrath. Once you see this, you cannot fail to see that whatever else the cross does, it must rightly set aside God’s sentence, it must rightly set aside God’s wrath, or it achieves nothing.” (D.A. Carson)

Question 2 - Why is the concept of substitutionary atonement so important for our understanding of our need for God?

III. SUCCESS

defeating evil, so reconciling us with God.

The impact of Christ’s death for us is stated in a twofold way here:.

(i). Evil is defeated at the cross by Jesus - Both Colossians and Revelation portray the death of Christ as a cosmic victory over the powers of evil (Col 2:13–15 and Rev 12:10–11).

(ii). We are reconciled to God by Christ’s death! -(Eph 2:16; Col 1:20). God is the initiator of the reconciliatory work of Christ, restoring right relationship between a rebellious people and Himself and setting a precedent for the church’s ongoing ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18–19).

“knowledge of Christ's death for us as our sin-bearing substitute requires us to see ourselves as dead, risen and alive for evermore in him. We who believe have died—painlessly and invisibly, we might say—in solidarity with him because he died, painfully and publicly, in substitution for us. His death for us brought remission of sins committed 'in' Adam, so that 'in' him we might enjoy God's acceptance; our death 'in' him brings release from the existence we knew ‘in’ Adam, so that 'in' him we are raised to new life and become new creatures (cf. Rom. 5-6; 2 Cor. 5:17, 21 ; Col. 2:6-3:4)...through faith and God's gift of the Spirit, we become 'the righteousness of God' and ‘rich’—that is, justified from sin and accepted as heirs of God in and with Christ—by virtue of him who became 'poor' for us in the incarnation and was 'made sin' for us by penal substitution on the cross (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, 8:9). And...when this same Jesus Christ, who was exalted to glory after being humbled to death for us, reappears to 'fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory' (cf. Phil. 2:5–11, 3:21).” (J.I. Packer: What did the Cross Achieve? Tyndale Press).

This profound doctrine of the work of Christ shows us just what he achieved.

To paraphrase J.I Packer here: “The ingredients in the evangelical model of penal substitution are now, I believe, all before us, along with the task it performs...and which I therefore state in personal terms, as follows:

(1) God,...judges all sin as it deserves..”.

(2) My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God's presence,... and nothing I do can blot them out.

(3) The penalty due to me for my sins,...was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.

(4) Because this is so, I through faith in him am made 'the righteousness of God in him', i.e. I am justified; pardon, acceptance and sonship become mine.

(5) Christ's death for me is my sole ground of hope before God.

(6) My faith in Christ is God's own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ's death for me.

(7) Christ's death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.

(8) Christ's death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.

(9) Christ's death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love and to serve.

Thus we see what, according to this model, the cross achieved —and achieves.

Question 3 - How does knowing what Jesus achieved for us on the cross impact on our sense of belonging to God?