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Sunday, November 15, 2015

Why Jesus Died On the Cross

I was challenged to write an essay on the question, "why did Jesus die on the cross" from one of our pastors this past week. This is what I came up with. I hope it is edifying to you !



                                                      The Atonement of Jesus: Defined

I was once asked to explain the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross from an atheist as a self-proclaimed agnostic sat within earshot to the discussion. I told of my understanding of the atonement and was received with astonishment. The two laughed at what I understood to be a beautiful doctrine; it was mocked as barbaric.
            It is no wonder, then, that the atonement of Jesus Christ has been much misunderstood throughout the ages. When most American Evangelicals are approached with the question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”, the answer will most often look something like this: “to die for my sins.” But this is not a full, theological answer. Others have reasoned that God can just forgive sin and Jesus’ death on the cross was not necessary. R.W. Yardbourgh says of this, “Recently M. Winter has argued that the crucifixion was, in fact, unnecessary. All humans must do to be reconciled to God is ask sincerely. Moral conversion is enough.”[1] But this is not a sufficient answer either; there had to be a reason for the atonement of Jesus Christ. Why would Christ be “made flesh” (John 1:14) if God could just forgive sins? 
Some time ago, Dr. John Piper wrote a book called “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die.” I suppose that dying for sin is one of those reasons. As seen in the title of the book, there could be a myriad of theologically sound reasons why Jesus died on the cross (at least 50!).
            The question, then, is what is the best answer for the question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?” I propose that a quick reading of Romans 3:21-26 will give an excellent answer to this question. But again, the theological richness of this passage is lost on most laymen and women who read through the book of Romans. The complexity contained within the third chapter of the book of Romans made Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church, located in North Texas, to say that “if the bad guys ever come for you, and they are going to take your bible, what you do is you take your bible and you turn to Romans 3:21-26 and you tear this out and memorize it. Because this is the summit of your bible… it’s been said you can tell the intelligence of a Christian by the notes he has on Romans 3:21-26.”[2]
            I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Nelson, and I believe that the watered-down versions of the atonement we see today are representative of the cheapening of the Gospel message seen in post-WWII Evangelicalism. It is my intention to answer this question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?” This is not a simple answer however. It begins in the Old Testament; the sacrificial system as seen in Leviticus represents an archetype for Jesus’ death on the cross. The discussion will then move to defining what different atonement theories there are to gain a historical perspective on the shifting answers of theologians before arriving at what the reformers called, “substitutionary atonement.” I present substitutionary atonement (as do most Evangelicals) to be the most correct interpretation of the question of Jesus’ death on the cross and the most credible evidence is seen in Romans 3:21-26. I will then examine this passage in particular, exposing its richness and depth. By the end, the reader will have a clear answer on the reason why Jesus died on the cross.
      Our quest begins at the root of atonement in the Old Testament. What is atonement and why was it necessary? Many are aware that sacrifices happened in the Old Covenant and were prescribed in the law of the ancient Hebrews, but many more are clueless as to why this was necessary. This must be fleshed out to gain a foundational understanding of the original question.
Two necessary elements are required for atonement: a transgression and a person whom the transgression was committed against. In relevant nomenclature, this means atonement requires a sinner and God who we have sinned against. R.T. Kendall says,  More specifically, the notion of atonement assumes that the relationship between human beings and God is fractured, but can be temporarily restored by religious rituals. The verb (kāpar) literally means ‘to cover’; atonement is envisioned as covering over sin and thus cleaning it up.”[3]
It is crucial at this point to understand the holiness of God. Holiness literally means “separation.” Separation from what though? One commentator said:
God’s holiness is what separates Him from all other beings, what makes Him separate and distinct from everything else. God’s holiness is more than just His perfection or sinless purity; it is the essence of His “other-ness,” His transcendence. God’s holiness embodies the mystery of His awesomeness and causes us to gaze in wonder at Him as we begin to comprehend just a little of His majesty.[4]
This does little justice to what God’s holiness pragmatically looks like. God is so pure, so transcendent, and so perfect, that words alone cannot express this attribute of God. The prophet Isaiah got a small taste of God’s holiness in a vision contained in Isaiah 6; this made him fall on his face in reverence for the King of Kings, saying, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Is. 6:5)  
This definition of God’s holiness is the cause for the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus; in this chapter, God, through the messenger Moses, prescribes the ritual cleansing entitled the “day of atonement” or “Yom Kippur”. Because of God’s holiness, He is perfect in every way. His perfection descends to His other attributes, such as the justice of God. God’s justice requires punishment when wrongs have been committed (called “sin” throughout the bible). The nation of Israel was required to make atonement for the sin of the previous year as a way to temporarily restore the relationship between holy God and sinful man. The ritual contained there is complex and a full discussion of the garments and ceremony will not be discussed at depth.
The importance lies within the elements that compose the atonement: the sins of the nation of Israel incite the wrath of God upon the nation; the nation’s relationship with God is broken because of sin; reparations cannot be made to appease God, or the debt in which is owed to God cannot be repaid; the only solution to this is the death of the human in which the sin proceeded from; instead of the death of people, God instituted a system where there would be a substitute. Eberhard Jüngel makes this process very clear:
It must first be remembered that atonement is something different from making reparations. Atonement is for when reparations cannot be made. The idea of atonement presumes that there is a transgression which cannot be paid out, a kind of debt that simply cannot be reckoned in ledgers and balanced like other debts. It is not possible for such a transgression, such a debt to be cancelled out by human debtors. It remains there. Any extinction of the debt can only come with the extinction of the debtor. It is not some thing, no matter how much, but their lives that they must give in order to atone for their debt. So ‘for those humans, atonement means a readiness to die’. However, so that they might not die, these debtors bring an atoning sacrifice, which takes their place. Thus an atoning sacrifice is another sacrifice which substitutes for the life of the one who has deserved death.[5]
L.L. Morris rather succinctly says this about the process: “It is clear that in the OT it was recognized that death was the penalty for sin (Ezk. 18:20), but that God graciously permitted the death of a sacrificial victim to substitute for the death of the sinner.”[6] It must be remembered that God is holy and humans, no matter how hard we try, are not. Therefore, atonement is necessary to continue the relationship between man and God.
The Old Testament sacrifices demonstrate a type of what was to come in Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews is often said to be understood in the context of Leviticus. Hebrews 10:4 tell us of the Old Testament sacrifices: “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” In this, we see that the Old Testament sacrifices were not a permanent solution to sin. As expressed earlier, the purpose of the atonement in this dispensation was a temporary solution to a permanent problem: sin was covered to maintain the relationship but it was not taken away. For this, a more perfect sacrifice was necessary; one that would require God’s intervention in human affairs.
Throughout historical theology, the question of why Jesus died on the cross has been mired in controversy. In general, there are three major views that require our attention: 1) the “ransom theory” (dating back to Origen and other church fathers); 2) the “moral influence” theory (dating back to Abelard, 1079-1142); 3) and the “penal satisfaction” view (dating as far back as Anselm of Canterbury [1033-1109] but upheld by the reformers).[7] Each one of these views will be held up to scrutiny in order to engage the question at large.
The church fathers largely accepted the ransom theory of atonement. This essentially is the theory that focuses on passages like Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Jordan Henderson says, “The early church fathers follow the New Testament writers in focusing on ransom as the chief metaphor to describe the atonement. Christ’s death is seen as a ransom paid on behalf of sinful humanity for their redemption.”[8] A ransom could be defined as “a sum of money demanded or paid for the release of a captive.”[9] Obviously the church fathers did not think that money could be paid to release a man from sins, but rather Jesus Christ replaced the monetary analogy. But to whom was this ransom paid? God?
No, the ransom was paid to Satan. Irenaeus discusses this when he said:
So again, on the other hand, it was necessary that through man himself he should, when conquered, be bound with the same chains with which he had bound man, in order that man, being set free, might return to his Lord, leaving to him (Satan) those bonds by which he himself had been fettered, that is, sin.[10]
This seems incongruous to us in the 21st century, but in the early days of Christianity, it held weight for almost a millennium. Dr. Henderson says, “In the Western fathers, the ransom theory is seen much more in terms of God’s justice in His transaction with the devil.”[11]
The problem with this theory is that it makes the business end of the transaction not between God and Jesus, but between God and Satan. When considered against the Old Testament sacrificial system, this seems to hold little weight. God’s wrath was against the sin of the nation that could only be reconciled by the high priest. It is interesting, then, that Hebrews 8 speaks of Jesus as being superior to the high priest; Jesus mirrored an element of the priestly lineage (Hebrews 7) and therefore mankind was reconciled to God by Christ’s earthly ministry, death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection. It would seem that we must postulate, at this point, that a substantial doctrine of the atonement that does not commit error must make the transaction of substitution between God and Christ (and not between God and Satan as the ransom theory proposes).
While the ransom theory is replete with problems, it did not get overturned as the dominant theory of atonement until the medieval French scholastic philosopher Peter Abelard proposed the so-called, “moral influence theory.” If the ransom theory says that a transaction took place between God and Satan, the moral influence theory denies that a transaction was even necessary.
Abelard maintained an overemphasized view of God’s love that would satisfy the liberal theologians of today. According to Abelard, the death of Christ was such a momentous event of Christ’s love towards us that we cannot help but be drawn toward it. In our repentance, we are transformed by the death of Christ without a long and drawn out explanation of sin or atonement. It is curious that this was even considered a healthy alternative to the ransom theory. Franklin Johnson says, “According to this, the sole mission of Christ was to reveal the love of God in a way so moving as to melt the heart and induce men to forsake sin.”[12]
It is obvious, as we have seen, that this theory does not do justice to the Old Testament sacrificial system and therefore must be rejected. Where is the reverence for a holy God? Where is the satisfaction for God’s wrath against sin? When reading Abelard, one might confused him for the liberal theologians of the 20th and 21st century, not the medieval philosopher. By necessity in the arguments laid out, we must reject this theory as well.
The most obvious answer to the best explanation for the atonement then, lies with “penal satisfaction”, or substitutionary atonement. A most basic definition of substitutionary atonement could be what Charles Ryrie proposed: “Substitutionary or vicarious atonement simply means that Christ suffered as a substitute for us, that is, instead of us, resulting in the advantage to us of paying for our sins.”[13] Notice the striking similarity of this language in reference to the Old Testament sacrifices. In order to describe this doctrine to it’s fullest, we now turn to Romans 3:21-26.
            The book of Romans is one of the most important documents available to Christians today. The Apostle Paul begins his letter with a greeting and details of his future plans. In verse 16, he says he is not “ashamed of the Gospel of Christ” before suddenly shifting directions in verse 18. From Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul paints a bleak picture of humanity. The message within this passage could be summed up succinctly in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
            We have already examined the holiness of God and his perfection versus the imperfection and sin of man. To take this one step further, follow this logic: if God is holy in everyway (perfect in every attribute), how can man get to holy God? There is no way to do enough good things to reach holy God because you already stand condemned as a sinner based on your pedigree of being human (Rom. 5:12-14), not to mention the sin accumulated over a lifetime. No amount of asceticism or good works can get you to holy God. Only through forgiveness of sins can one truly reach the heights of holy God. But God cannot just forgive sins (as in the moral influence theory); this violates His perfect justice. This predicament is precarious, but not impossible.
            In verse 21 of Romans 3, Paul talks about the “righteousness” of God. What is this righteousness? As mentioned, God is perfect in all His attributes. The root word of “righteousness” is the word “right”. Therefore, righteousness is the act of doing right all the time. Paul demonstrates that the “righteousness of God has been made manifested apart from the law.” This means that there is a way to salvation that does not require following a set of rules and obligations that we would ultimately fail to keep because of sin. Paul says this righteousness is through faith in Jesus Christ “for all who believe.” This means that we can have the same righteousness Jesus exhibited on earth if we believe in Him by faith. John Stott says, “If God justifies sinners freely by his grace, on what ground does he do so? How is it possible for the righteous God to declare the unrighteous to be righteous without either compromising his righteousness or condoning their unrighteousness? That is our question. God’s answer is the cross.”[14]
            This process is called “justification” and it is a word that Paul uses in verse 24: “and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The avenue in which one can “become holy” is through a process called justification. Justification is a word that conjures up pictures of a courtroom: you stand condemned by the judge (God) for your crimes (sin). The judge is about to read off your sentence when Jesus Christ steps in to take your place for you. In this way, the judge can declare you “not guilty”. This satisfies the justice of God (who can not just let you “off the hook” by forgiving you, because this violates His justice) but at the same time, allows you to have a relationship with Him. This is accomplished through faith (a discussion that would be best saved for a different time).
            Verse 25 says, “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 is here that we come to one of the most conclusive passages about the atonement. And within this passage, one finds answers to the question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”
            The word “propitiation” has crucial significance here. Dr. Leon Morris says of this, “…propitiation means the removal of wrath…”[15] Dr. Stott agrees: “to ‘propitiate’ somebody means to placate his or her anger, and it seems to them an unworthy concept of God (more heathen than Christian) to suppose that he gets angry and needs to be appeased.”[16] The idea is simple: God’s wrath descends on sin; this is in line with His character; He is holy. Therefore, in order to “justify” man, a way to reconcile men to Himself, He must present a substitution. Much like the Old Testament sacrifices, this atonement placates the wrath of God.
            This is not as simple as it seems however. Jesus was no ordinary sacrifice. It was Anselm who postulated the intricacies of the atonement that the reformers clung to. He said that it was only suitable that if the wrath of God was upon humanity, a human should rightly be representative of the human race. Therefore, only a man could accomplish for man the satisfaction of God’s wrath. On the other hand however, we have seen that man is incapable of doing what is right (Rom. 3:23). Therefore, only God could effectively accomplish what man is unable to do.
            And that is why the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is so beautiful: it is in the hypostatic union, or the union of both 100% man and 100% God, where God’s humanity and God’s perfection meet to be the perfect sacrifice as described in Hebrews 10:1-7. The reason Jesus died on the cross was to satisfy the wrath of God for sin. In doing so, God is now able to extend a hand of adoption, through faith, because of His grace.
            Dr. John MacArthur said it best:
Then comes the death of Christ. And what does the death of Christ say? If it says anything in the universe, it says God is righteous. What do you mean by that? I mean, sin had to have a punishment, right? So you see it is at the cross where God's justice and God's mercy have kissed each other, at the cross. Why? Because the penalty was paid but we were spared from the paying by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, so that God's mercy can be extended to us with no loss of His justice. That's why I say primarily, the death of Jesus Christ is for the sake of God, to preserve God from accusation that He is unjust, because the glory of God is the reason for everything. Let me tell you, folks, you've just plumbed the depths of the meaning of Calvary's cross. God was satisfied (the writer’s emphasis).[17]
            The plain fact, as demonstrated, is that Jesus died for God: Jesus died as the perfect substitute for the wrath of God upon sin. And in doing so, we can be justified, or declared “not guilty” through faith. This is of primary importance when answering the question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”
            Dr. John Piper has my utmost respect. What I have tried to accomplish here is one of the primary reasons to answer our original question. What his book, “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die” says about the atonement is not that Jesus died for a number of different reasons (although that may be true), but simply that the atonement is much more complicated than putting it in a box and expecting one or two reasons to answer the whole. When Christians say, “Jesus died for my sins,” they are expressing a correct answer only to a point. It is reductionist to say this is the full story. What is of greater significance to answer is how this is possible when trying to resolve the dilemma of sinful man to holy God. I understand that what has been accomplished thus far is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the atonement; I hope I have faithfully answered the question that began this quest, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”
Bibliography
Got Questions Ministries. Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013.
Henderson, J. Jordan. “Substitution.” Edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015.
Irenaeus of Lyons. “IrenÊus against Heresies.” In The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Vol. 1. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885.
Jüngel, Eberhard. Justification : The Heart of the Christian Faith. Edinburgh;  New York: T&T Clark, 2001.
Kendall, R. T. Understanding Theology, Volume One. Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 1996.
MacArthur, John. “How Christ Died for God, Part 1” (mp3). Sermon, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA, April 18, 1982. Accessed November 13, 2015. https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/45-31/how-christ-died-for-god-part-1.
Morris, L. L. “Atonement.” Edited by D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, and D. J. Wiseman. New Bible Dictionary. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996.
Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988.
Rodrigues, Adriani Milli. “Atonement.” Edited by Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, and Rebekah Hurst. Lexham Theological Wordbook. Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.
Ryrie, Charles Caldwell. Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999.
Soanes, Catherine, and Angus Stevenson, eds. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Stott, John R. W. The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World. The Bible Speaks Today. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.
Yarbrough, R. W. “Atonement.” Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner. New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.



[1] R. W. Yarbrough, “Atonement,” ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 392.
[2] Thomas Nelson, “The Greatest Paragraph in the Bible” (sermon, Denton Bible Church, Denton, TX), accessed November 13, 2015, http://www.dbcmedia.org/sermons/the-greatest-paragraph-in-the-bible--pauls-assertion-of-justification/.
[3] Adriani Milli Rodrigues, “Atonement,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
[4] Got Questions Ministries, Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013).
[5] Eberhard Jüngel, Justification : The Heart of the Christian Faith (Edinburgh;  New York: T&T Clark, 2001), 158–159.
[6] L. L. Morris, “Atonement,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 102.
[7] R. T. Kendall, Understanding Theology, Volume One (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 1996), 114.
[8] J. Jordan Henderson, “Substitution,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).
[9] Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[10] Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 550.
[11] J. Jordan Henderson, “Substitution,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).
[12] Franklin Johnson, Chapter V: The Atonement, vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005), 65.
[13] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999), 329.
[14] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 112.
[15] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 180.
[16] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 113.
[17] John MacArthur, “How Christ Died for God, Part 1” (mp3 of sermon, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA, April 18, 1982), accessed November 13, 2015, https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/45-31/how-christ-died-for-god-part-1.