This month we continue our look at the basic truths of the Gospel. What should people be told so that they understand the Gospel? We suggest five things everyone should hear who needs Jesus, and these same five things you should learn to make part of sharing the Gospel with people. So far, we have looked at three things:
1. Jesus is the center of the Gospel, just as He is the source and center of all things.
2. The holiness of God is essential in presenting the Gospel.
3. Man is sinful, corrupt, and lost. He is under just condemnation for rebelling against God.
The fourth essential is that the only way men can be reconciled to God is by what Jesus accomplished on the cross. In Jesus Christ, God satisfies the demands of His own judgment against sin. This takes place by means of substitution, a sacrifice of One on behalf of another.
How can this be? It doesn’t seem fair. No, it is not fair. Fair is when we all get what we deserve. That would mean no salvation for any human being, because God is just and we are all sinners. If God’s justice were all He is, we would all be doomed — justly doomed. But God’s love made a way for us. Some people wonder: “Why doesn’t God just forgive us without all this fuss?” If He simply forgave us, He would not be just. Think of a judge who would simply let all sorts of criminals go free because He wanted to show them love. People would say, “He is not just!” And they would be right.
How can God express His loving grace toward sinners and rebels without diminishing His justice? The answer is glorious! He takes the punishment on Himself. We cannot see Christ suffer and be able to say, “You are not just to forgive!” The Judge took the condemned prisoner’s place on the scaffold. He paid the price in full. He is that committed to justice.
The principle of substitutionary atonement is all throughout the Bible, from God providing a ram in place of Isaac in Genesis 22:13 to the Levitical sacrifices, most notably stated in Lev 17:11, “‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”
When we come to Isaiah, we learn that the ultimate sacrifice for sin is that of a man:
“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. 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” Isaiah 53:5-6.
The New Testament says it with great clarity: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…” (Galatians 3:13), and “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).
And then there is Peter: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18).
Jesus dying as our substitute is an essential part of the Gospel. Know it, and learn some of these verses related to it. Remember, a great exchange has taken place. Jesus took our sins onto Himself, and He grants us His righteousness. Martin Luther said it like this:
“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s, and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he might clothe us with it, and fill us with it; and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them . . . in the same manner as he grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in his righteousness.”
Martin Luther
For the one who belongs to Jesus, all of our sin He bore to the cross. And the complete sufficiency of His righteous life belongs to us. We stand before God pure in Christ. That is very good news indeed.
Yours in Christ,
Originally printed in The AFBC Pony Express. Vol. XII, No. 12, December 2019.