Introduction: The Gospel Narrative

I want to tell you a short story:

Yesterday on the news I saw a man standing in front of two masked men take a swing and then run away as fast as he could. He ran a short distance where he came to another man, at which point he turned and ran with all his might to a point of safety about 30 yards away. After a short time he took off in another direction, paused, and then took off back in the direction of the masked men.

How many of you understand that I am talking about someone escaping from some sort of a crime scene, but then returning for some reason, perhaps to offer aid to someone else, or maybe because he is now in a position to better confront the masked men? And how many of you understand that I am actually talking about a batter playing baseball who got a double and eventually made it home to score a run?

We can understand from this example how easy it is to develop an entirely false understanding about something from the narrative used to communicate it because of our own presuppositions and biases that we associate with certain words, like masked men, or how the same word can be used with different meanings in different contexts, like take a swing, or point of safety.

Narratives are a very powerful tool for framing or spinning facts that are undeniable in such a way as to influence people in a direction that is beneficial to those controlling the narrative, even if it is very misleading in regard to the actual truth of the underlying facts. For example, a very successful narrative promoted by advocates of evolutionary theory is that the earth is billions of years old and the fossils that are found all over the world prove it. That narrative contrasts with the long-held Biblical understanding that the earth is only around 6000 years old and the fossils are the result of a worldwide flood. Because people especially in the late 19^th and 20^th centuries were enamored with the “miracles” of modern science and its promised salvation of a better life in this world, the narrative was very effective because it was seen as “scientific”. We now know that it in fact isn’t scientific, that questionable and unprovable assumptions are made in dating methods, and there are numerous instances where scientists have discovered soft tissue in fossils that are supposedly millions of years old. Nevertheless, the false evolutionary narrative has been extremely successful in turning people away from God.

Mat 24:24 NAS ²⁴ For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

1Ti 6:20 KJV O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.

Another more modern example is the narrative about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers. Although the attacks were portrayed as a complete surprise, within hours Osama Bin Laden was being identified all over the mainstream media as the one most likely behind them, which was then confirmed by subsequent investigation. But there are a number of reasons to believe that that narrative which led to the war on terror and that was hugely profitable for the military industrial complex was not entirely true. Or how about the narrative of Covid starting in a wet market in Wuhan rather than the biowarfare lab just down the road?

Considering the power of a false narrative to completely mislead people from the truth, is it possible that Satan would use the same methods to mislead people about God’s truth? Consider his words to Eve in the garden:

Gen 3:4-5 NAS ⁴ And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die! ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We tend to think about these words as a complete lie, but was it in fact an entirely false statement? Did they die in the way we think of death the moment they ate the forbidden fruit? And were not their eyes in fact opened, and did they not in fact become like God knowing good and evil?

Gen 3:7 NAS ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked…

Gen 3:22 NAS ²² Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil…

And so, although the words themselves were not false, the narrative he portrayed was a complete lie that deceived them and allowed evil to enter into and proliferate in the world thereby enslaving all of mankind.

Question: Is it possible, and even likely, that Satan continues to deceive people in the same way today? Is it also possible, considering how important the gospel message is to the salvation of men’s souls, that he would apply the same technique of deception to it, even using the same words found in Scripture that are true, but using a false narrative to mislead people in a way that still allows his evil to proliferate and even deceives people to believe they are saved and serving God when they are not truly saved and in fact are serving him? What would make us think that such a thing is possible?

First, Paul wrote that Christ’s coming would not happen unless the apostasy comes first, which we see all around us, and which is only made possible by the false gospel of a false Jesus.

2Th 2:1-4 NAS Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, ² that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

What is the temple of God?

Joh 2:19-21 NAS ¹⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews therefore said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But He was speaking of the temple of His body.

Col 1:24 NAS ²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

1Co 3:16 NAS ¹⁶ Do you not know that you (plural) are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

So the temple is not a building waiting to be built in Jerusalem, it is the Church, the body of Christ. Just because a church says they worship Jesus, is it necessarily the true Jesus? The Mormons worship Jesus, but it isn’t the Jesus we know from the Bible, although they purport it to be. Is it possible that other churches who say they worship Jesus are also following a Jesus more pleasing to them that tells them to just say a prayer and never doubt that they are saved? Do we allow for the possibility that there may even be things that we have come to believe about Jesus that we have gotten wrong and aren’t true? Do we sincerely love the truth so that we are always actively and prayerfully studying His word in case that has happened?

Act 2:42 NAS ⁴² And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

And if someone points out something to us in Scripture that doesn’t seem to fit with our understanding, are we noble-minded Bereans who examine the Scriptures to see if they are so?

Act 17:10-11 NAS ¹⁰ And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.

If the devil was able to mislead the first man who walked and talked with God, how much easier do you think it would be for him to mislead people who don’t devote themselves to seeking the truth by carefully examining the Scriptures for themselves?

Now, going back to 2Thessalonians 2 , notice that the false Christ Paul describes is called the man of lawlessness, which lawlessness is exactly what we see not just in the world but also in what we think of as the Church where people are taught a gospel that even though it may not say so directly, still communicates that because they are saved by grace their sins really don’t matter. (Think of all the sex scandals not only in the Catholic Church, but also among the Southern Baptists and many other denominations.) Paul continues that the coming of this lawless one is marked by a great deception, and that God Himself will send a deluding influence upon those who refuse to love the truth.

2Th 2:8-12 NAS ⁸ And then that lawless one will be revealed …⁹ that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, ¹⁰ and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹ And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, ¹² in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

2Ti 4:3-4 NAS ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; ⁴ and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.

For a second reason why we should consider it very possible that what many think of as the Church has been misled by the present gospel narrative, consider what we understand to be the essence of the gospel today—that our sins have violated God’s law, the penalty of that sin is death, and Christ died to pay our penalty so we could be forgiven of all our sins (past, present and future) and go to heaven when we die. This that we think of as the gospel today would have been completely unrecognizable by the Church in the first centuries after Christ. In fact, this way that we think of the gospel saving us only began to arise 1000 years after the time of Christ with a man named Anselm. He was steeped in the feudal culture of his time, and instead of understanding Christ’s death as ransoming us from sin and the devil as the early church believed, he began to understand that our sins had violated God’s honor, since He was a Lord like the lords of his day. To atone for the affront to His honor required satisfaction to be made, which Christ did by dying when He didn’t have to, which act of obedience brought great honor to God, more than was required, in order that His surplus of honor could be accounted to our deficit. In this way Christ’s death came to be understood as substitutionary since He paid the honor due to God through His death that we could not. This understanding of the gospel is now referred to as the Satisfaction model of the atonement.

We can understand from these ideas how God’s holy saints and martyrs also came to be seen as having a surplus of righteousness from their own deeds for which God’s people could pray for them to share from their excess of God’s grace to make up what was lacking in their own righteousness. We should see here how the acceptance of one false idea in time leads to others even farther from the truth; such is the power and deception of a false narrative.

These ideas developed further for hundreds of years until during the reformation, when the idea of obtaining God’s grace from the saints or by purchasing it through indulgences were rejected as clearly unbiblical. However, the narrative of Anselm was not completely rejected, and instead our sins came to be viewed by the Protestant Reformers more fully as a violation of God’s justice, the penalty or punishment of which was death, and Christ came to pay our penalty by dying in our place. This idea is referred to today as Penal Substitution, but again, in the history of the church it is actually a relatively recent understanding even though it is what we have been taught and have been led to believe is what true Christians have always believed, because, after all, the narrative can show it to you right there in the Bible.

Now, I am not going to try to convince you that what you think of as the gospel is entirely false, because the facts of the gospel found in Scripture are absolutely true, and God is able to save anyone with a good and honest heart even if we have been misled by a false narrative. However, I would like to present for your consideration that the narrative we have been taught actually has some scriptural problems with it that are at the very least hindering your own understanding of the gospel and being able to clearly communicate it to others, or worse, that it is misleading many in their walk with God about the nature of the salvation Jesus came to bring.

Now, there is a lot to understand and it is going to take several sections and reviews to explain what I’m trying to communicate. In order to do so we need to answer a number of questions that are foundational to the gospel, but that are often glossed over or even completely left out in order to quickly present it and make a quick convert. But this makes it all the more possible to be misled by a false and deceptive narrative about the true gospel. And so, as we conclude this section, I want leave with you the following questions to think about that we will try to answer:

What is the Gospel? This is the Big Question. To answer it we need to understand the following:
What is salvation? From what are we saved? To what are we saved? How does it happen? Does one who has been saved lose the free will to be un-saved?
What is the kingdom of God? Where is it, and when is it?
How does Christ’s death and resurrection accomplish our salvation?
How do we receive forgiveness of sins? Does the Bible actually teach that God could not forgive our sins without Christ dying to pay our penalty and satisfy His justice? See Mat 18:21-35. If forgiveness doesn’t come through Christ’s death, then why did Jesus have to die?
When Paul spoke of death as the wages of sin, did he mean it in the sense we think of death as the penalty or punishment from God for our sin?
When God told Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit he would surely die, did He mean that in order to satisfy His justice He would have to punish him with death for his disobedience, or did He mean that his sinful disobedience would be like a deadly poison from which he would surely die?
Where does repentance fit in? Is it required or is simple faith or belief the only thing that is required for salvation?
What is the nature of God’s wrath? Is it just a final, cataclysmic meting out of punishment to those He has finally had enough of, or is there more to it than that?
What is atonement, and how does a sacrifice accomplish atonement?
Where does God’s Law fit into the Gospel? What did Paul mean when he said that he was not under the Law of the Jews, but at the same time not without the law of God?
What is the difference between a penal sacrifice and a heroic sacrifice? Did Christ die as a penal sacrifice to appease God’s wrath, in the same way that Pagans throughout history would make sacrifices, even of their innocent children, to appease their gods? Or did He die as a heroic sacrifice to show us the way to life through death?
Christ died to ransom us, but from who, or what? Does it make sense that God paid the ransom for our sins to Himself? To whom then was the ransom paid?

In light of the answers to these questions that help us to understand the true gospel,

What must one do to be saved? I.e., what does it mean to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved? If one is once saved is he necessarily always saved? How can we know that we are saved? What is the nature of eternal life, and is it just something in the future?
Is “being saved” the ultimate goal, or is there more, perhaps much more to our Christian walk than just the hope of heaven when we die? What then must one do after he is saved?

What Is the Gospel Part 1

In the last section we talked about the Gospel Narrative, and in particular how the devil is very adroit in spinning the actual facts of the gospel message in such a way as to still deceive and mislead us about the nature of salvation and keep us from God and God from establishing His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. You will remember this story I told and how it illustrates the way Satan is able to use our own presuppositions and biases to mislead us into an entirely false understanding of something just as he did to Eve in the garden, and that we can be sure he also does with something as important to our salvation as the gospel:

Although this actually describes a baseball player getting a double and then making it home to score a run, because of our preconceived notions of masked men we are deceived to think of it as a crime scene, and then further deceived by the way the same words can be used with different meanings in different contexts, like take a swing, or point of safety.

So what we want to do is take off the rose colored glasses or our own preconceived notions and look very carefully at the actual words and context of Scripture to answer three really big and important questions: What is the Gospel? What must I do to be saved? What must I do after I am saved? The first question is the biggest, after which the answers to the other two will be very straightforward. It will take several lessons to cover the first one, so let’s get started.

What Is The Gospel?

^NIVEphesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

The gospel is the message of truth about our salvation, but salvation from what? Many think of salvation as deliverance from the evils of this world, and especially in terms of escaping the judgment of hell in order to go to heaven when they die. And the Scripture does speak of being saved from our enemies (Luk 1:71), all our calamities and distresses (1Sa 10:19), and the wrath of God (Rom 5:9, 1Th 1:10).

Luk 1:69-71 NAS ⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant– ⁷⁰ As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old– ⁷¹ Salvation from our enemies, And from the hand of all who hate us…

1Sa 10:19 NAS ¹⁹ “But you today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, ‘No, but set a king over us!'”

Rom 5:9 NAS ⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

1Th 1:9-10 NAS you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

But while the gospel of our salvation encompasses all of these, its message of truth speaks of a much greater salvation, and greater in a way that without it, none of these other salvations is possible. For we understand that enemies who hate us, tribulations, injustice, and even God’s anger are only consequences of a much bigger problem and not the root of the problem itself, which is sin. It was sin that first brought death into the world, and with it all of the pain, affliction, and strife that we now experience and from which we seek deliverance. Although people have always sought salvation from these consequences of sin, it is essential to understand the need for salvation from sin itself.

God is the Creator of all things, and as with any creation, it was designed to function in a certain way. Like a new car that requires an owner’s manual, God’s Creation requires direction from its Builder so it will be useful and provide the service and enjoyment for which it is intended. This is the purpose of His commands, and that purpose is not to deprive us of anything as the serpent suggested in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:5).

Gen 3:4-5 NAS ⁴ And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die! ⁵ “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Rather, the purpose of God’s commands is to guard and protect our happiness and well-being as well as His own purposes. But because God’s Creation is infinitely more complex than an automobile, it requires much more than an owner’s manual—it requires a close, personal relationship with the Creator who alone can impart the wisdom and discernment necessary to leverage the many intricacies of His Creation in the way they were intended for us personally, and not misused in ways that would bring harm.

Thus, although man was created in God’s image, eternal, and with the free will to make his own choices, with that freedom also came the responsibility to exercise it carefully; cf. Gal 5:13, 1Pe 2:16.

Gal 5:13 NAS ¹³ For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

1Pe 2:16 NAS ¹⁶ Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

For there were choices he could make that could harm both himself and others, as well as God’s own interests. Such was the choice of the first Adam to disobey God’s command and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, through which sin entered into the world, and with it death, along with all the affliction and suffering that we now see and experience. Worst of all, man’s sin separated him from His Creator who was the very source of his life. For without His communion he would stumble deeper and deeper into darkness as a slave to the god of this age, who understood the self-destructive nature of sin that deceives one to believe that good is evil and evil is good (Isa 5:20) and used it to beguile man and take him captive to do his will (2Co 11:3, 2Ti 2:26).

Isa 5:20 NAS ²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

2Co 11:3 NAS ³ But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

2Ti 2:25-26 NAS With gentleness correct those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, ²⁶ and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Salvation From Sin and the Gospel of the Kingdom

We understand then that although God created man in His own image to have free will and has given him a wide latitude within which to exercise his will, there are choices he can make that are outside of God’s own will. For both as the Creator and as a loving Father He knows that some choices will lead to ruin. Sin, therefore, is rebellion against the will of God to do our own will. And as the root cause of all the evil in the world is sin, it follows that true, abiding salvation is deliverance from that sin, from the exercise of our own self-will contrary to God’s. It also follows that such deliverance must happen not only individually but corporately, in order that God’s righteous rule can be restored over all the earth and men might live in peace and be governed in true justice as He originally intended. Thus the message of truth is also called the gospel of the kingdom of God (Luk 16:16; cf. Mat 4:23, 9:35, 24:14), that God is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them (2Co 5:18-19), but also restoring them to the governing principles upon which an abundant life of peace and joy can be lived by all.

Luk 16:16 NAS ¹⁶ “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

Mat 4:23 NAS ²³ And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

Mat 9:35 NAS ³⁵ And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

Mat 24:14 NAS ¹⁴ “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.

2Co 5:18-19 NAS ¹⁸ Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

It was for this salvation that Christ came.

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

Isaiah 9:6-7 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

The Jews at that time were hoping for salvation from their Roman oppressors. But the Romans were only the latest in a long list of oppressors under which the nation had suffered. They might have known then, and some were no doubt beginning to understand, that there was something much greater from which they needed salvation. In the same way, many today hope for deliverance from various circumstances, perhaps a debilitating sickness or some other sorrow, often an injustice, not realizing the root cause of such sufferings from which not only they but the whole world needs deliverance if they are ever to be truly free. Hence the gospel is the good news of salvation from sin. As Jesus taught,

John 8:34-36 Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. ³⁵ And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. ³⁶ If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

The gospel is the message of hope for that sort of life that is life indeed, which is the essence of eternal life. Eternal life is only obtained through communion with God our Creator and Jesus Christ through whom we were created, and so the gospel is how we can be restored to that fellowship.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

1Corinthians 8:6 There is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

Apart from this fellowship we cannot become sons to remain in His house forever but will continue as slaves to the sin that separates us further and further from God. By continuing in sin, its deceptive nature hardens our hearts against the truth that could save us, to the point that our hearts are so deceived by our sin that the truth can no longer save us, even though we are certain in our hearts that we know the truth. Such were the religious leaders who opposed Jesus so that rather than being drawn to the truth that could save them, they accused Him of being demon possessed and casting out demons by the prince of demons; Mar 3:22. Unless we are delivered from our sin, it will inevitably make us a vessel of God’s wrath, deserving only the indignation of Him who created us in His own image to bear the peaceful fruit of righteousness, but against Whom we have rebelled to do our own will to our own destruction.

Romans 2:4-8 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? ⁵ But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who will render to every man according to his deeds: ⁷ to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; ⁸ but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

But the good news of the gospel is that God Himself has provided the means of salvation from our sin through His Son Jesus Christ, who always sought to do the will of the Father and not His own (Joh 5:30, 6:38, 8:29), and came to lead us in that path to life.

Joh 5:30 NAS ³⁰ “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Joh 6:38 NAS ³⁸ “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Joh 8:29 NAS ²⁹ “And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

Mat 26:39 NAS ³⁹ And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

Through Him we find not only forgiveness for our sins, but also deliverance from our bondage to sin, which is what separates us from life.

Romans 7:18-25 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. ¹⁹ For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. ²⁰ But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. ²¹ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. ²² For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, ²³ but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (It is He who sets us free from our slavery to sin that leads to death.)

The good news of the gospel is that God has provided the means for us to be set free from the body of this death through His own Son Jesus Christ. For all of us by both nature and choice are foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But the kindness of God our Savior and His love for man has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ to save us from these things, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy (Tit 3:3-5). It is by God’s grace that we are saved, through simple faith that obediently follows His Son in the way that leads to life. Such salvation is not of ourselves but is a gift from God, and no works of our own could ever earn it so that no one can boast. And yet the true salvation He brings always results in the good works for which we were created (Eph 2:8-10).

Tit 3:3-7 NAS ³ For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Eph 2:8-10 NAS ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, that no one should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

What is the Gospel, Part 2

Review

In the last couple of sections I have shared how Satan can use our biases and presuppositions to spin a narrative from the actual facts of the gospel in order to distort its message and mislead us from acting upon it in a way that results in true salvation as illustrated by this short story:

Although all the facts are true, because of the language used to frame the story we are easily misled to suppose it is talking about a crime scene, when in fact it is talking about a baseball player getting a double and then making it home to score a run.

And so we have begun looking very carefully at the actual words of Scripture to answer the question of what exactly is the Gospel, which we understand is about our salvation, but salvation from what? As we began to see last time, although most people think of salvation as escaping the consequences of their sins and going to heaven when they die, the Scripture is clear that we cannot be delivered from the consequences of sin without being delivered from sin itself. Sin is rebellion against the will of God to do our own will, and it is a poison that separates us from our Creator who alone is able guide us to the abundant life in His Creation for which we are created.

Life on this earth as God intended it is magnificent, but complex, not just in its physical aspects that mankind is only now coming to understand, but also in its spiritual aspects of which mankind is almost completely ignorant because so many completely deny it even exists. God is good, and His commandments are not to hold something back from us as Satan would have us believe, but are also for our good to protect us and to enable us to experience the abundance of life as He intended.

And so salvation is deliverance from sin, from the exercise of our own self-will to do God’s will, through Jesus Christ who always did the will of the Father, even unto death on a cross. And this salvation from sin is not just personal in regard to individuals, but corporate in regard to all nations. For the gospel of our salvation is also the gospel of the kingdom of God—the restoration of God’s righteous rule over all the earth so that men might live in peace and joy and be governed by true justice as God intended.

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

Titus 3:3-7 NAS ³ For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, ⁵ He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Christ’s Death and Resurrection

Central to our understanding of the gospel of our salvation is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1Corinthians 15:3-4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

As we saw last time (Eph 2:8-9), the salvation promised in the gospel is by grace, through simple faith that obediently follows Jesus in the way that leads to life. And the way that leads to life is actually the way of the cross that leads through death. This is completely counterintuitive to our fallen nature of sin, but such is a consequence of its self-destructive nature that deceives us to suppose that darkness is light and light is darkness. It is only by believing the gospel of our salvation and following Christ in the way of the cross that we can come out of the darkness to walk in the light of life.

Matthew 16:24-25 If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ²⁵ For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.

John 12:24-26 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵ He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. ²⁶ If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

Repentance for Forgiveness of Sins

According to the gospel, in order to truly live we must first die, and the expression of that death while we are still in the flesh of our earthly bodies is repentance, which was the first word of the gospel from the lips of John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter and Paul.

Matthew 3:1-2 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Acts 2:37-38 Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” ³⁸ And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 26:19-20 Consequently, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰ but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.

Speaking of the central importance of His death and resurrection to the gospel, Jesus specifically told His disciples what to preach for the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 24:46-47 Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; ⁴⁷ and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Many mistakenly believe that death is the judicial penalty of sin that must be paid in order for God to forgive, and that forgiveness comes as the result of Jesus’ death who paid that penalty[1]. But as we have seen, death is not a punishment inflicted upon a sinner for disobeying God, but rather the natural consequence of being stung with death’s poison, which is sin (1Co 15:56), by rebelling against His commands which He gives to keep him safe and preserve his life. God is always willing to forgive and earnestly desires to be reconciled to His erring children, for that is His nature—so long as there is sincere repentance upon which the broken relationship can be restored, as Jesus taught in His parables of the prodigal son and the unforgiving servant:

Luke 15:18-20 I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.” ²⁰ And he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him, and kissed him.

Matthew 18:21-35 ²¹ Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. ²³ For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴ And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand talents. ²⁵ But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. ²⁶ The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.’ ²⁷ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ ³⁰ He was unwilling however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. ³¹ So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. ³² Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. ³³ Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. ³⁵ So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

We should also understand from this parable that if forgiveness was based upon the penal substitution of Christ’s death for our own, then the king, who represents God, could not have lawfully reinstated the debt owed since it would already have been paid. Further, the Scripture is clear that “the soul who sins will die” (Eze 18:4), not another in his place who is innocent. Rather, “the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself (Eze 18:20). We understand then that the forgiveness of sins offered in the gospel comes not because Jesus died to pay our penalty for sin, but because we repent from our rebellion against God and turn our hearts back to Him. Again,

The Significance of Christ’s Death

But why then did Jesus even have to die? Why is His death so important to the gospel of our salvation if the forgiveness of our sins comes not from His death but from our repentance? Newsflash: even when we want to repent, it isn’t easy because in order to do so we have to die to our self-will, but our sinful nature doesn’t want to die. And so, very simply, Christ had to die to show man the way to life through death, which the deceptive nature of sin had hidden from him.

Romans 6:5 If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.

Romans 6:8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

2 Corinthians 4:10 [We are] always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Philippians 3:10-11 ¹⁰ [I want to know Christ], and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; ¹¹ in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

2Timothy 2:11 It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.

1Peter 4:1-2 Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, ² so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

In the next section we will continue to investigate the modern notion of Christ’s sacrifice as a penalty for sin and suffering God’s wrath in our place as a substitutionary atonement. We will look at the nature of God’s wrath, as well as the wages of sin in Rom 6:23 which is not the same as the penalty of sin as we are led to suppose. We will also look at the ideas of atonement and propitiation, and how a sacrifice accomplishes those.

What is the Gospel, Part 3

Review

In this study we have come to understand how Satan can use our biases and presuppositions to spin a narrative from the actual facts of the gospel in order to distort its message and deceive us as illustrated by this short story:

And so we have begun looking very carefully at the actual words of Scripture to answer the question, “What exactly is the Gospel”, which we understand is about our salvation, but salvation from what? We have now come to understand that sin is rebellion against the will of God to do our own will, and is a poison that separates us from His life. All the evil we see in the world and that touches our lives is a consequence of sin, and the only way we can be delivered from the consequences of sin and the evil it brings is to be delivered from sin itself, which is what Jesus came to do.

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

True salvation is deliverance from sin, from the exercise of our own self-will to do God’s will, through Jesus Christ who always did the will of the Father, even unto death on a cross.

At the heart of the Gospel is the death and resurrection of our Lord. Jesus came to show us the way to life through death. He said,

John 12: 26 ²⁶ If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

Where Jesus leads us is in the way of the cross. He is the way, and the truth, and the life, and the way of truth that leads to life is through death. In faith we follow Him in that way, trusting from His example that as we die with Jesus, we will also live with Him, and as the Father raised Him from the dead He will also raise us.

Romans 6:8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

2 Corinthians 4:10 [We are] always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

True repentance is the first expression of taking up our cross to follow Jesus, for in order to repent we must suffer in the flesh and die to our self-will, which is exactly how we cease from sin.

It is actually true repentance, not Christ’s death, that results in the forgiveness of our sins, as illustrated in Jesus’ parables of the Prodigal Son and the Unmerciful Servant, as well as His own words.

So why did Jesus have to die? To show us the way to life through death by which means only our bondage to iniquity could be broken, and so that we could be born again of a new Spirit from above, the Spirit of Christ that trusts God even unto death to raise us up from the dead.

The Nature of God’s Wrath

But what about Christ’s death as a sacrifice for us? Isn’t the penalty of sin death, and didn’t Jesus die as a substitutionary atonement in our place? We should be careful to note that although Scripture does speak of divine retribution for unrepentant sin, we can also understand such punishment as God simply giving people over to the stubborn rebellion of their own self-will to reap the destruction they have sown according to the laws of their creation.

John 12:46-48 I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness. ⁴⁷ And if anyone hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. ⁴⁸ He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.

Romans 1:18-28 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. ²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. ²⁵ For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. ²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, ²⁷ and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. ²⁸ And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.

Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. ⁸ For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.

**The Wages of Sin**

Hence, the apostle Paul did not write that the penalty of sin is death. Rather, he wrote that the wages of sin is death, meaning that death is what we earn or receive as our due for serving in the employ of sin as our master as opposed to the eternal life that is our reward for serving in the employ of God unto righteousness.

Romans 6:20-23 ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin (i.e., in the employ of sin), you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ Therefore what benefit were you then deriving (i.e., earning) from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. ²² But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God (i.e., Christians now serve God as their “boss”, not sin), you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whereas death is earned by serving in the employ of sin, eternal life is free as the natural consequence of simply being in Christ Jesus. It is the deceitful nature of sin that turns this upside-down so that people suppose that because they are doing their own will that they are free and not working for and earning the wages of sin as their master. On the other hand, they suppose that to obtain eternal life they must “go to work” for God against their will so that to walk in the way that leads to eternal life seems to them like toil for an intolerable master, and to be saved they must work to earn it. Only by exercising the saving faith that follows Christ in the way of the cross to die to the sin of our own self-will are we able to see that we are only free when we are free from sin, and that true salvation really is completely free simply by walking in the way of life for which we were created, but from which we have fallen.

Sacrifice and Atonement

We must also be careful to understand that the purpose of the sacrifices God ordained for sin was not to purchase His forgiveness by satisfying His justice. God is not so small as to demand satisfaction for our affronts to Him before He will forgive. If He were, and we are to be like Him, that would mean that neither could we forgive without first receiving satisfaction. But of course, this is not what Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:12,14-15 ¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors… ¹⁴ For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Matthew 7:2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Mark 11:25-26 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions. ²⁶ But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.

Ephesians 4:32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

From the time man fell into sin God had ordained a sacrifice, especially a sacrifice of blood that speaks of life, as a propitiation or way of atonement to express the contrition of a sincere repentance upon which man’s relationship to God could be restored. But we must be careful to understand that it was the repentant contrition expressed by the sacrifice that propitiated God, and not the sacrifice itself, as if it was paying the price for his sin so that he could simply purchase God’s forgiveness with the blood of another.

1Samuel 15:22-23 Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.

Psalm 51:16-17 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. ¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Isaiah 1:11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, And the fat of fed cattle. And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.”

Jeremiah 7:22-23 I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³ But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’”

Hosea 6:6 For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Amos 5:21-22 I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. ²² Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.

Micah 6:6-8 With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With yearling calves? ⁷ Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸ He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Hebrews 10:4-9 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵ Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired, But a body Thou hast prepared for Me; ⁶ In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast taken no pleasure. ⁷ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (In the roll of the book it is written of Me) To do Thy will, O God.’” ⁸ After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast not desired, nor hast Thou taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), ⁹ then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Thy will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

Christ’s Heroic Sacrifice

Rather, the sacrifice of blood, which was a sacrifice in the sense that it was offered at substantial cost to the offender in order to demonstrate sincere contrition, was what God ordained for man to offer in simple faith because it looked forward to the sacrifice of His own Son, which was not a penal sacrifice in the sense of dying in our place to pay our penalty for sin, but a heroic sacrifice, offered at great cost to both Himself and the Father, showing us the way to life through death. Before Christ came the sinner could not have understood this. Still though, the sacrifice of blood that he contritely offered to make atonement with God for his sins would also have been a reminder of his own death that awaited him for his sin, but also the hope that because of the faith expressed by his sacrifice that there was yet something beyond death that he couldn’t see, but that was ultimately realized in Christ. Thus Abraham offered up his son, his only son Isaac whom he loved, in obedience to the Lord’s command, not to propitiate His favor (see again Mic 6:7 above), but to demonstrate his love for God in the very same way that God would love us. And he did so with the saving faith that sees through death to that life that is life indeed which only comes from fellowship with the Father through the Son.

Hebrews 11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; ¹⁸ it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” ¹⁹ He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type.

James 2:21-23 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? ²² You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

It is in this sense then that an offering for sin was ordained as the means to atone for one’s sin and propitiate God for the restoration of fellowship with Him. And it is in this sense that Jesus died for our sins, not as a penal sacrifice required to purchase our forgiveness, but as a heroic sacrifice to show us the way to life through death.

But didn’t Christ take our sins upon Him at Calvary where they were nailed to the cross? As we continue this series next time we will look at what Scripture says was nailed to the cross, which will also help us to better understand the important relationship between the Law and the Gospel that is a source of great confusion for many.

What is the Gospel, Part 4

Review

In this series of teachings we have come to understand how Satan uses our biases and presuppositions to spin a narrative from the actual facts of the gospel so as to distort its message and mislead us, as illustrated by this short story:

Although all the facts are true, because of the language used to frame the story we are deceived to believe it is talking about a crime scene, when in fact it is talking about something entirely different: a baseball player getting a double and then making it home to score a run. In this same way Satan is able to mislead us about the truth of the gospel using subtle nuances of language and our own preconceived notions, even though the facts communicated are technically true.

And so we are looking very carefully at the actual words of Scripture to answer the question, “What is the Gospel”, which we now understand is not just about salvation from the consequences of sin, but from sin itself. Sin is rebellion against the will of God to do our own will, and is a poison that separates us from His life. Death is not the penalty for sin that God metes out to punish us for violating His commands, but the wages we earn for serving in its employ and so disregarding the commands He gives as our Creator and loving Father to protect us and preserve our lives. Thus Jesus didn’t come to save us from the consequences of our sins by paying a penalty demanded by God’s justice, but from the poison of sin itself, by showing us the way to life through death by which means only our bondage to iniquity could be broken, and so that we could be born again of a new Spirit from above—His Spirit—that always seeks to do the will of the Father, even unto death, believing in faith that He will raise us up from the dead.

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, and the way of truth that leads to life is through death. In faith we follow Him in that way of the cross, trusting from His example that as we die with Jesus, we will also live with Him, and as the Father raised Him from the dead He will also raise us.

John 12:26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be.

Romans 6:8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

2 Corinthians 4:10 [We are] always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

And so forgiveness of sins comes not because Jesus purchased our forgiveness by paying the penalty for our sins, but from sincere repentance.

God’s arms are always wide open to forgive all who turn to Him in true repentance, but in order to sincerely repent, we have to suffer in the flesh and die to the self-will of our sinful nature, which is exactly how we cease from sin.

Hence, Jesus didn’t die as a penal sacrifice to satisfy God’s justice and appease His wrath, but as a heroic sacrifice to show us the way to life through death in order to rescue us from our sins. For God is not so small as to demand satisfaction in order to forgive. He forgives “seventy times seven” whenever we turn to Him in true repentance. And the purpose of the sacrifices He ordained was not to appease His wrath by purchasing His forgiveness with the blood of bulls and goats, and then His own dear Son. Rather, their purpose was as an expression of true repentance at substantial cost, i.e., a sacrifice, that looked forward to the provision God would make through the like sacrifice of His Son, to deliver mankind from the power of sin. As Scripture makes clear, it is not the sacrifice itself that makes atonement or propitiates God in order that fellowship with our Creator can be restored, as if we could purchase God’s forgiveness with the blood of another, but the repentant contrition expressed by the sacrifice. I.e., the blood does not reconcile God to us by allowing Him to forgive, as if He couldn’t be appeased without a blood sacrifice, but reconciles us to God, by expressing the sincere repentance of death to our own self-will that is necessary in order for our fellowship with God to be restored.

Although men were easily misled by the deceptive nature of sin to suppose that their sacrifice was paying a penalty for their sin to appease God’s wrath so they could be forgiven, still, for the one of sincere faith, the sacrifice of blood that he contritely offered to make atonement with God for his sins would also have been a reminder of his own death that awaited him for his sin, but also the hope that because of the faith expressed by his sacrifice that there was yet something beyond death that he couldn’t see, but that was ultimately realized in Christ. Thus Abraham offered up his son, his only son Isaac whom he loved, in obedience to the Lord’s command, not to propitiate His favor, but to demonstrate his love for God in the very same way that God would love us. And he did so with the saving faith that sees through death to that life that is life indeed, which only comes from fellowship with the Father through the Son.

James 2:23 And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

Dead to the Law

But didn’t Christ take our sins upon Him at Calvary where they were nailed to the cross with Him? Let us be careful to note what Scripture records was taken away and nailed to the cross with Jesus:

Colossians 2:13-14 And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, ¹⁴ having canceled out the certificate of debt (lit. the handwriting, cf. the KJV, referring to a legal agreement specifying a claim that one has on another according to the agreement, in this case the ordinances or decrees of the Law of Moses that God gave to the Jews to keep them separated from the surrounding nations) consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it (singular, referring to the “signed agreement” of the Mosaic covenant, not to our transgressions, plural) out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (again, referring not to our sins, plural, but to the old covenant with its requirements and decrees to which the Jews were otherwise bound, but that could only arouse the sinful passions and not deliver from them; that old covenant they had agreed to at Sinai was made obsolete by the new covenant effected by Jesus’ death on the cross, Heb 8:13).

While the idea of something owed is not absent from the meaning of the handwriting Paul mentions, it is unfortunate, but motivated by modern evangelical theology, that the NAS and other modern translations (such as the NET, NIV, and ESV) describe it in terms of a debt. For rather than the obligation owed to “abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them” (Gal 3:10), the debt owed has come to be understood in terms of a penalty required by God for our sins that we couldn’t pay, but that was paid for by Christ’s death on the cross. Interestingly, the original American Standard Version and the English Revised Version translated the word as bond, which better reflects the meaning of the word as it is used in the only other place it is found in the sacred writings with which the early church would have been familiar.

Tobit 4:20-5:3 NRS ²⁰ “And now, my son, let me explain to you that I left ten talents of silver in trust with Gabael son of Gabrias, at Rages in Media. ²¹ Do not be afraid, my son, because we have become poor. You have great wealth if you fear God and flee from every sin and do what is good in the sight of the Lord your God.” 5:1 Then Tobias answered his father Tobit, “I will do everything that you have commanded me, father; ² but how can I obtain the money from him, since he does not know me and I do not know him? What evidence am I to give him so that he will recognize and trust me, and give me the money? Also, I do not know the roads to Media, or how to get there.” ³ Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, “He gave me his bond (handwriting) and I gave him my bond (handwriting). I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.”

Tobit 9:2-5 NRS ² “Brother Azariah, take four servants and two camels with you and travel to Rages. Go to the home of Gabael, give him the bond, get the money, and then bring him with you to the wedding celebration. ³ You are witness to the oath Raguel has sworn, and I cannot violate his oath. ⁴ For you know that my father must be counting the days, and if I delay even one day I will upset him very much.” ⁵ So Raphael with the four servants and two camels went to Rages in Media and stayed with Gabael. Raphael gave him the bond and informed him that Tobit’s son Tobias had married and was inviting him to the wedding celebration. So Gabael got up and counted out to him the money bags, with their seals intact; then they loaded them on the camels.

We should also observe that Paul’s letter to the Colossians was written at the same time as that to the Ephesians (cf. Col 4:7-9, and Eph 6:21-22), with numerous parallel passages in the two letters, including the following that helps us better understand Paul’s words to the Colossians about what was nailed to the cross.

Ephesians 2:14-16 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one (i.e., both Jews and Gentiles into one body, the Church), and broke down the barrier (literally, the hedge, fence or wall of protection; cf. Isa 5:2,5, Mat 21:33, and Luk 14:23) of the dividing wall (that had separated the Jews from the Gentiles), ¹⁵ by abolishing in His flesh the enmity (“which was hostile to us”, Col 2:14), which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances (or decrees, as the NAS translates the same word in Col 2:14), that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

The Messiah whom God would send to save mankind from its sins was His own Son and of the same divine nature as Himself, but would also be fully man in order to show people the way to life through death. That man had to be born into the world, and in order to prepare the fully human home into which He would come, He set apart the Jewish nation, starting with Abraham, “in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Gen 18:19). Toward this end, the regulations of the old covenant that the Jewish nation agreed to at Sinai were given to separate the Jewish nation from the Gentile nations around them and keep them holy to the Lord. But those regulations were also onerous and a “burden”, “a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear” (Act 15:10,28). Nevertheless, they were obligated by the Mosaic covenant to obey them so long as that covenant was in effect. But when Christ died upon the cross it inaugurated the new covenant in His own blood that made that old covenant obsolete. It is in this way that the cross nullified (rendered inoperative, caused to fade away, abolished) the requirements of the Mosaic law with all of its rules and regulations and put to death the enmity that formerly separated Jew and Gentile so they could become one new man. Hence, Christ’s death not only showed men the way to life through death, it also nullified the old covenant for all those who enter into the new covenant, so that they are no longer under the Law of Moses with all of its rules and regulations, but under the new law of Christ to be led by His Spirit to walk in love and thereby fulfill the righteous requirements of the law (Rom 8:4).

Romans 7:1-6 Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? ² For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. ³ So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. ⁴ Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. ⁶ But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

2Corinthians 3:6-9 [God] made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter (i.e., of the handwriting of the old covenant written in stone), but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. ⁷ But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory (notice that the old covenant, including even the ten commandments that were written in stone, was a ministry of death, as it could only point out our sin but not deliver us from it), so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, ⁸ how shall the ministry of the Spirit (that leads one in the way of the cross to be delivered from sin) fail to be even more with glory? ⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation has glory (the old covenant was a ministry of condemnation), much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory (only when one enters into the new covenant inaugurated by Christ’s own blood and follows Him in the way of the cross to find deliverance from sin is he able to come to true righteousness).

Galatians 3:10-13 For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” ¹¹ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” ¹² However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”

Galatians 3:23-25 Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Galatians 4:1-7 Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, ² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. ³ So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world (such as observing “days and months and seasons and years”, Gal 4:10, or submitting to decrees, such as “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”, Col 2:20-21). ⁴ But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, ⁵ in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “”Abba! Father!’ ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

So, was it our sins that Paul says were nailed to the cross in order to pay the penalty of death and satisfy God’s justice? No. What was nailed to the cross? The “handwriting (i.e., the signed bond) of ordinances that was against us”, which was the law of commandments found in the old covenant consisting of decrees that were given to keep the Jews separated from the pagan nations surrounding them until Christ should come to save both Jew and Gentile by showing them the way to life through death. That signed bond of indebtedness of the old covenant was nailed to the cross and is made obsolete by the new covenant in Christ’s blood, whose death we enter into by faith by taking our own cross to follow Him.

In the next section we will look at numerous passages throughout Scripture that are often cited in support of penal substitution to see how they can also and better be understood in light of Christ’s heroic sacrifice to show us the way to life through death.

What is the Gospel, Part 5

Review

Words have meaning. But they frequently have a range of meaning, depending upon the context in which they are used. A “masked man” may refer to a person committing a crime, or to a doctor performing a surgery, or to the umpire in a baseball game. Likewise, “take a swing” may refer to someone striking out at someone else, perhaps in anger or in self-defense. Or it may refer to a batter attempting to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher in a baseball game, or to someone wanting to try something new. Because of the subtle nuances of language and our own inherent cultural biases and presuppositions, it is possible to be misled, or to mislead others, to think that a given narrative means one thing, when in fact it means something completely different. For example, a person wishing to mislead you about the truth with facts that are true might report the following:

I saw a man standing in front of two masked men take a swing and then run away as fast as he could. He ran a short distance where he came to another man, at which point he turned and ran with all his might to a point of safety about 30 yards away. After a short time he took off in another direction, paused, and then took off back in the direction of the masked men.

If you didn’t know any better, because of the language used to frame the story you could easily be misled to believe he was talking about a crime scene, when in fact he was talking about a baseball player getting a double and then making it home to score a run.

We understand that politicians, especially with the help of the media, “spin” the facts of real things that happen to promote a narrative that is beneficial to their agenda, even though it is very misleading and may even be the exact opposite of the truth. We can be sure then that Satan, their master and the god of this world, does the same thing, especially with the facts of the gospel.

And so we have been looking very carefully at the actual words of Scripture to answer the question, “What is the Gospel”, which we have now come to understand is not just about salvation from the consequences of sin—a get out of hell free card to live how we want without fear of judgment—but from sin itself. Sin is rebellion against the will of God to do our own will, and is a poison that separates us from His life. Death is not a penalty for sin that God metes out to punish us for violating His commands, but the wages we earn for serving in its employ and so disregarding the commands He gives as our Creator and loving Father to protect us and preserve our lives. Thus Jesus didn’t come to save us from the consequences of our sins by paying a penalty demanded by God’s justice, but from the poison of sin itself, by showing us the way to life through death by which means only our bondage to iniquity could be broken, and so that we could be born again of a new Spirit from above—His Spirit—that always seeks to do the will of the Father, even unto death, having faith to believe that He will raise us up from the dead.

Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.

John 12:26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be.

Romans 6:8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

2 Corinthians 4:10 [We are] always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

And so forgiveness of sins comes not because Jesus purchased our forgiveness by paying a penalty for our sins, but from sincere repentance.

God’s arms are always wide open to forgive all who turn to Him in repentance, but in order to sincerely repent, we have to suffer in the flesh and die to the self-will of our sinful nature, which is exactly how we cease from sin.

Hence, Jesus didn’t die as a penal sacrifice to satisfy God’s justice and appease His wrath, but as a heroic sacrifice to show us the way to life through death in order to rescue us from our sins. For the purpose of the sacrifices God ordained was not to appease His wrath by purchasing His forgiveness with the blood of bulls and goats, and then His own dear Son. Rather, their purpose was as an expression of true repentance at substantial cost, i.e., a sacrifice, that looked forward to the provision God would make through the like sacrifice of His Son, to deliver mankind from the power of sin. As Scripture makes clear, it is not the sacrifice itself that makes atonement or propitiates God in order that fellowship with our Creator can be restored, as if we could obtain God’s forgiveness with the blood of another, but the repentant contrition expressed by the sacrifice. I.e., the blood does not reconcile God to us by allowing Him to forgive, as if He couldn’t be appeased without a blood sacrifice (as pagans throughout history have believed), but reconciles us to God, by expressing the sincere repentance of death to our own self-will that is necessary in order for our fellowship with God to be restored.

Micah 6:6-8 NAS ⁶ With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With yearling calves? ⁷ Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first-born for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸ He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

“The soul that sins will die” (Eze 18:4). We have all sinned (Rom 3:23), and so we will all die. Jesus was without sin, and so He didn’t have to die. But He laid down His life as a heroic sacrifice. As Jesus’ life was poured out with His blood (Lev 17:11) so too was His Spirit (Jam 2:26) that always subjected His own will to that of the Father. In dying for us He gave up His Spirit (Joh 19:30) in order that we might be born again of that Spirit to follow Him in the way of the cross. For only in dying to our own self-will can we be delivered from our sin and rebellion in order that our relationship with God can be restored. And just as He raised Jesus from the dead, as we are conformed to His image to follow Him in the way of the cross, in faith we know that He will also raise us up, that He might be the first-born among many brethren, who are of His same divine nature and so of the same family, one with Him and the Father; Rom 8:29, Joh 17:21, 2Pe 1:3-4.

Romans 8:29 NAS For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;

John 17:20-21 NAU ²⁰ “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; ²¹ that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

2Peter 1:3-4 NAS His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. ⁴ For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

In the last section we saw that it wasn’t our sins that were nailed to the cross with Jesus, as many suppose, but “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us”, referring to the law of commandments found in the old covenant consisting of decrees that were given to the Jews to keep them separated from the pagan nations surrounding them until Christ should come to save both Jew and Gentile by showing them the way to life through death. That signed bond of indebtedness of the old covenant was nailed to the cross and made obsolete by the new covenant in Christ’s blood, whose death we enter into by faith as we take up our own cross to follow Him.

Colossians 2:13-14 NAS ¹³ And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, ¹⁴ having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Ephesians 2:14-16 NAS ¹⁴ For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, ¹⁵ by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

Understanding Scripture in Light of Christ’s Heroic Sacrifice

Having come to understand the true nature of the salvation wrought by Christ’s heroic sacrifice to deliver us from our sins, we can now better understand the numerous passages of Scripture that are typically set forth to argue for a penal sacrifice that satisfied God’s wrath so we could be forgiven.

Isaiah 53:4-6 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. ⁵ But He was pierced through for (lit. “from”, “on account of”, “because of”) our transgressions, He was crushed for (lit. “from”, “on account of”, “because of”) our iniquities (not to pay our penalty for sin, but to show us the way to life through death); The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed (from the death of our own self-will by following Him in the way of the cross to suffer in the flesh and so cease from sin, 1Pe 4:1-2). ⁶ All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him (not in the sense of Him paying a penalty for our sin, but in the sense that He would not have had to die were it not for our sins. From His great love for the lost God willed that Jesus suffer and die as a heroic sacrifice in order to rescue mankind from the sin by which we are all ensnared; Jesus subjected Himself to do that will and God raised Him from the dead to show us the way to eternal life by dying to our own self-will).

John 10:15-18 The Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep (as a voluntary, heroic sacrifice, not as a penal sacrifice that of necessity had to be offered to satisfy God’s justice and pay a penalty of our sin so we could be forgiven). ¹⁶ And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold (i.e., the Gentiles, who were aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise, separated from the Jews by the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, Eph 2:12-21); I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. ¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. ¹⁸ No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.

Act 2:23 NAS ²³ This Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God (not to make satisfaction for our sin so God could forgive and be reconciled to us, but to show us the way to life through death so we could be reconciled to God), you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

Romans 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith (Christ’s blood does not propitiate God for man’s sins by making satisfaction for those sins, but by demonstrating to man the contrite submission of self-will even unto death, knowing from His example that as we exercise the saving faith that follows Him in the way of the cross, God is able to raise us from the dead, in order to enter into the very nature of eternal life).

Romans 4:25 He who was delivered up because of our transgressions (not to pay a penalty so we could be forgiven, but to show us the way to life through death by which we are delivered from the power of sin), and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 5:6-8 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (not to pay a penalty for their sin, but to show them the way to be delivered from their sins). ⁷ For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Christ, who did not have to die, heroically laid down His life for us, not to pay a penalty so we would not have to die—because we do die; Rom 8:13—but to show us the way to eternal life through death).

Romans 8:3-4 For what the Law could not do (i.e., deliver us from the power of sin), weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin (not to purchase forgiveness, but to show us the way to life through death to sin. Although the righteous and holy law of God could only bring the knowledge of sin, Rom 3:20, and not deliver man from its power, the sacrifice of His Son could, and it is in this way that …), He condemned sin in the flesh (i.e., broke its power), ⁴ in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (for it is the Spirit who leads us in the way of the cross to die to sin so that we can fulfill the righteousness of the Law though freed from its letter.)

Romans 8:13 For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (not to pay a penalty of death for sin, but to show us the way to life through death), how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

2Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin (or a sin offering, as the word may also be translated and is commonly used in the LXX; cf. Exo 29:14,36, Lev 15:30, Num 6:11, etc…, and Rom 8:3 above) on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (not by some divine accounting trick that credits Christ’s righteousness to ourselves, but by showing us the way to the righteousness of God by following Him in the way of the cross to die to the sin of our own self-will).

Galatians 1:4 the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins (not to purchase forgiveness for our sins so that we could continue in them with no cost to ourselves, but…) that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me (not to pay a penalty of death for our sin to satisfy God’s justice, but as one who otherwise did not have to die in order to show us the way to life through death).

Ephesian 5:2 And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a (heroic) sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. (It is hard to imagine how a penal sacrifice of His own Son suffering an unjust death could have truly been a fragrant aroma to God, but it makes perfect sense if it was a heroic sacrifice.)

Titus 2:14 who gave Himself for us (not to pay a penalty for our sins so we could sin without cost, but…), that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

Hebrews 7:27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself (as a heroic, not a penal sacrifice).

Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself (as a heroic sacrifice) without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 9:22 And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Notice it doesn’t say that God won’t forgive without a blood sacrifice, but that forgiveness simply doesn’t happen. For it is the blood that witnesses the sincerity of the contrition that makes atonement and restoration of the relationship possible. We demonstrate that contrition by following Christ in the way of the cross and subjecting ourselves to the death that we rightly deserve, knowing in faith that God is able to raise us up from the dead and give us the life that is life indeed. It is in this way that by losing our life that we save it.)

Hebrews 9:28 Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many… (not to pay a penalty for their sins to satisfy God’s justice, but as the One upon Whom the sins of the many fell in order to rescue them from their sin by showing them the way to life through death. Again, if not for our sins He would not have had to die. By offering Himself up to show us the way to life through death Christ unveiled how we can be delivered from the power of sin and thus bound the strong man and condemned sin in the flesh by breaking its power, Rom 8:3. In this way He bore the sins of many and took away the sin of the world, Joh 1:29).

1Peter 2:24 …and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross (not so we could continue in sin and be forgiven, but…), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

1Peter 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God (Christ’s death does not reconcile God to us by satisfying His justice, but reconciles us to Him by delivering us from our sin that separates us from Him; Isa 59:1-2).

1John 2:2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (It is through His heroic sacrifice that shows us the way to life through death that God is propitiated for our sins, because it is only by following Christ in the way of the cross and subjecting our will to His that we find the complete deliverance from sin that makes reconciliation with God possible.)

1John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (not as One to die in our stead to satisfy His justice and so purchase His forgiveness and reconcile God to us, but to die to show us the way through death by which atonement can be made to restore our relationship to God by delivering us from the power of sin so we could be reconciled to God).

Revelation 1:5 To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood (not from the wages of our sin, which is death, by purchasing our forgiveness with His blood, but from the power of sin by showing us through His own death the way to life by following Him in the way of the cross to die to our own sins and so be set free from the bondage of sin that separates us from God and keeps us from eternal life. He is the way, and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him, John 14:6.)

Revelation 5:9 Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. (The blood of Christ purchased us for God not by paying a ransom to Himself to satisfy His justice, or even to the devil as the price he demanded to set us free, but to sin to ransom us from its power, as the price that was necessary to show us the way to life through death. “For he who has died is freed from sin” Rom 6:7.)

Ransomed From Sin and Delivered From the Devil

We understand then that if there was a literal person to whom Christ paid the ransom of His blood to set us free from our bondage, it was to us. But we also understand that the ransom He paid gets deposited and is effectual to deliver us from our sins only if we follow Him in the way of the cross. For again, it is he who has died who is freed from sin. By delivering us from sin Christ’s ransom also delivers us from God’s wrath, because in dying to sin we are no longer under His wrath but reconciled to Him.

Christ’s ransom that delivers us from sin through death also delivers us from the devil by nullifying the power of death through sin that he used to enslave sinners. Without Christ’s sacrificial death from which God raised Him from the dead, we would never have known that there is life through death, and would have continued to live in fear of death, slaves to our sinful nature and deceived by its poison. Without His sacrifice there was also no way for God to establish His kingdom on earth, for until men came to the knowledge of the truth that it is through death that they are set free from the sin that binds them, the world would continue to remain under the authority of the evil one. It is in this way that Jesus bound the strong man and rendered powerless the devil who had the power of death.

Luke 11:21-22 When a strong man, fully armed (with the power of sin and death), guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed (his kingdom of all those enslaved by his power); ²² but when someone stronger than he (Jesus) attacks him and overpowers him (which was fully accomplished by His death and resurrection), he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied (again, the power of sin and death), and distributes his plunder (for His own kingdom purposes).

Hebrews 2:14-15 ¹⁴ Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; ¹⁵ and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

[1] This penal theory of Christ’s atonement is actually a relatively recent understanding in the history of the church and is what most people today are taught as the gospel, but it was not the understanding of any Christian for centuries after Christ.

Where the Bible speaks for itself

Introduction: The Gospel Narrative

What Is the Gospel Part 1

What Is The Gospel?

Salvation From Sin and the Gospel of the Kingdom

What is the Gospel, Part 2

Review

Christ’s Death and Resurrection

Repentance for Forgiveness of Sins

The Significance of Christ’s Death

What is the Gospel, Part 3

Review

The Nature of God’s Wrath

**The Wages of Sin**

Sacrifice and Atonement

Christ’s Heroic Sacrifice

What is the Gospel, Part 4

Review

Dead to the Law

What is the Gospel, Part 5

Review

Understanding Scripture in Light of Christ’s Heroic Sacrifice

Ransomed From Sin and Delivered From the Devil

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