By: Ricardo Barber
Well Good Friday is tomorrow and Christians all around the world will be celebrating Christ's work on the cross. But have we taken time for one minute to ponder on what the most unparalleled event in human history accomplished. When Jesus uttered the words “It is finished,” what did the Triune God complete? In other words, what constitutes the atonement?
Our relationship with God and our eternal destiny depends on what Jesus did when he died and rose again. The understanding that God took our place has biblical support in both the Old and New Testament. The Bible says that we are individually and corporately at war with God, we all sin willfully and in our fallen state we are “dead in sin.” Isaiah 53 presents Christ as the suffering servant who stands in the place of others. Jesus himself said that he would be ‘a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45), the word ‘for’ (anti) means ‘in place of’; it is a substitutionary word. The Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Christ and also revealed God’s distaste for sin. Man is a sinner. How can a holy God commune with an unholy people? In the sacrificial practices we saw how God provided a substitute for humanity that pointed to Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. God's holiness required a sacrifice and the unholy acts of people demanded punishment. God accomplished both fellowship with man and his wrath upon sin by way of the cross. God himself decided to suffer “the wages of sin”; Jesus freely agreed to suffer God’s wrath against sin. This is known as the penal substitution view, for Christ accepted the punishment for sin in our place.
The atoning work of Christ on the cross should be weighted with the heaviness of sin itself. Failure to consider sin at its fullest importance automatically depreciates the cross of Jesus. There is a theme that runs throughout Scripture, redemption from the bondage of sin. God from beginning to end revealed his plan of reconciling us back to himself, after that relationship was broken by the sin of Adam.
The penal substitutionary view sets forth God’s love toward us and his holiness. “Penal substitution explains how God remains God in forgiving us of our sins, for God would deny his very being as God if he forgave us and violated his justice and holiness.”1 The sinfulness of mankind makes us guilty before a holy God. The punishment and penalty we deserve was laid on Jesus instead of us.2 Isaiah 53 is considered by many scholars to be the most important passage in the Old Testament.3 Isaiah prophesied that Christ would bear our sins on the cross; his death in this passage is depicted as substitutionary and atoning. It shows the Father being appeased by the bruising of his Son. It’s the picture of a suffering servant who offered himself willingly and gladly to satisfy God’s justice and take the place of sinners.4
“The penal substitution answers the most important question of human existence: How can human beings enjoy a right relationship with God?”5 I pray that we do not treat Good Friday this year like we tend to do every year, a day where we get a day off from work. Please take time to reflect on the magnitude of the atonement and what it took to save us. Meditate on God’s holiness as it was displayed on Good Friday and turn over in your mind the significance of this immense undertaking with which our Lord Jesus accomplished. If you have not believed on him and accepted the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, let this be the day! Let his pain be your gain. You can gain Jesus, who is eternal life today. My brothers and sisters in Christ witness this weekend, let the world know that your Lord and Savior:
"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." (Isaiah 53:5)
1 Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2006), 94.
2 Ibid, 67.
3 For further references to this statement see Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2007), 489.
4 Ibid.
5 Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement, 93.
Well Good Friday is tomorrow and Christians all around the world will be celebrating Christ's work on the cross. But have we taken time for one minute to ponder on what the most unparalleled event in human history accomplished. When Jesus uttered the words “It is finished,” what did the Triune God complete? In other words, what constitutes the atonement?
Our relationship with God and our eternal destiny depends on what Jesus did when he died and rose again. The understanding that God took our place has biblical support in both the Old and New Testament. The Bible says that we are individually and corporately at war with God, we all sin willfully and in our fallen state we are “dead in sin.” Isaiah 53 presents Christ as the suffering servant who stands in the place of others. Jesus himself said that he would be ‘a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45), the word ‘for’ (anti) means ‘in place of’; it is a substitutionary word. The Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Christ and also revealed God’s distaste for sin. Man is a sinner. How can a holy God commune with an unholy people? In the sacrificial practices we saw how God provided a substitute for humanity that pointed to Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. God's holiness required a sacrifice and the unholy acts of people demanded punishment. God accomplished both fellowship with man and his wrath upon sin by way of the cross. God himself decided to suffer “the wages of sin”; Jesus freely agreed to suffer God’s wrath against sin. This is known as the penal substitution view, for Christ accepted the punishment for sin in our place.
The atoning work of Christ on the cross should be weighted with the heaviness of sin itself. Failure to consider sin at its fullest importance automatically depreciates the cross of Jesus. There is a theme that runs throughout Scripture, redemption from the bondage of sin. God from beginning to end revealed his plan of reconciling us back to himself, after that relationship was broken by the sin of Adam.
The penal substitutionary view sets forth God’s love toward us and his holiness. “Penal substitution explains how God remains God in forgiving us of our sins, for God would deny his very being as God if he forgave us and violated his justice and holiness.”1 The sinfulness of mankind makes us guilty before a holy God. The punishment and penalty we deserve was laid on Jesus instead of us.2 Isaiah 53 is considered by many scholars to be the most important passage in the Old Testament.3 Isaiah prophesied that Christ would bear our sins on the cross; his death in this passage is depicted as substitutionary and atoning. It shows the Father being appeased by the bruising of his Son. It’s the picture of a suffering servant who offered himself willingly and gladly to satisfy God’s justice and take the place of sinners.4
“The penal substitution answers the most important question of human existence: How can human beings enjoy a right relationship with God?”5 I pray that we do not treat Good Friday this year like we tend to do every year, a day where we get a day off from work. Please take time to reflect on the magnitude of the atonement and what it took to save us. Meditate on God’s holiness as it was displayed on Good Friday and turn over in your mind the significance of this immense undertaking with which our Lord Jesus accomplished. If you have not believed on him and accepted the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, let this be the day! Let his pain be your gain. You can gain Jesus, who is eternal life today. My brothers and sisters in Christ witness this weekend, let the world know that your Lord and Savior:
"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." (Isaiah 53:5)
1 Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2006), 94.
2 Ibid, 67.
3 For further references to this statement see Daniel L. Akin, A Theology for the Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2007), 489.
4 Ibid.
5 Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement, 93.
