Letters From Leavers

When the Spirit blows, take the wind in your sails and move on. Don’t stagnate in faith. Be open to receive the truth of God and to let go of all that offends. Have your ears attuned to the sound of His voice. He may be calling you to travel away from your present position. You will want to count the cost. It may seem somewhat fearful and you may envisage consequences that fill you with dread. You argue against leaving and put up your strongest defence, but eventually you either obey the call or deny God and self.

I had no choice. The doctrines that once I upheld no longer rang true. Take the following as an example - argued with vigour by the authors of ‘Pierced For Our Transgressions’ (2007):

Quote: ‘Some who believe in penal substitution have replied by pointing out that Christ suffered willingly, or by noting that God gave himself in Christ to suffer in our place. But while these things are gloriously true, neither actually answers the objection. If guilty sinners are acquitted and an innocent third party is punished, then irrespective of his willingness an injustice has been committed, and it is unthinkable that God would do such a thing.

How are we to respond? The flaw in the argument is the unstated premise that Christ is unrelated to the believer, an unconnected third party. This is not true, for believers are in union with Christ — he is in us, and we are in him, indwelt by his Spirit (e.g. John 17:21; Romans 6:5; 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 1:27; Philippians 1:1). It is for this reason that the imputation of our guilt to Christ and his righteousness to us, his punishment and our acquittal, are just in the sight of God.’

What’s all the fuss about? A Brief Introduction to the Penal Substitution Debateby Steve Jeffery, Andrew Sach and Mike Ovey (authors’ comment on website for the book)

Now, it is well that the authors recognize that punishing the innocent in the place of the guilty is an act of injustice. However, their argument is that Jesus was imputed guilt as a result of His relationship and union with believers.

Yes, believers are in union with Christ — He in us and we in Him. We are made at-one with God, indwelt of the Holy Spirit. It is for this reason we are righteous — covered by the righteous life He gave as a sweet smelling offering and sacrifice for us at the cross (Eph.5:2). An impure offering God will not accept. This ‘oneness’ is the outcome of the atonement Jesus made. We share in His righteousness through faith and consent to the Law of the Spirit in Christ. We are atoned with God — reconciled to God in the righteousness of His Son.

It is not the other way around - that God became reconciled to us and that Jesus became atoned to sinners! For Jesus to have become legally guilty for the sins of believers, He would need to have consented to their crimes. Mere relationship to those who sin does not impart guilt: ‘The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son’ (Ezek.18:20, NKJ). The ‘union’ that is required of one to be imputed criminal guilt is that of complicity in the unlawful acts. Legally and biblically it was not possible for Jesus to have been made guilty for sin. The punishment He suffered was an act of injustice, as the Bible states: ‘His justice was taken away’ (Acts 8:33, NKJ). ‘He submitted Himself to Him who judges righteously,’ Peter wrote (1 Pet.2:23, NKJ). The resurrection was God’s act of justice - overturning the verdict of an illegal court, whilst proclaiming the righteousness of the One who died.

For those who truly repent God promises life, not death — forgiveness and healing, not wrath and punishment. Forgiveness is part of God’s Law; and, when God completely forgives, the beneficiaries are completely absolved from all the penal consequences of all past guilt and sin. In other words, when sinners repent and turn to Christ, condemnation is taken away. God’s response is to forgive, not to punish. The wrath of God remains for those who do not repent; it is not for those who do. Jesus did not die for the sake of the incorrigibly wicked — for whom God’s wrath is justly reserved.

Rather than upholding biblical truth, the doctrine of penal substitution actually contradicts it.

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:16: ‘God made Jesus sin’ - in what sense? How are we to understand Paul’s comment? It is not by taking this phrase out of context. This is what the Bible says, so it must be true! It is - no doubt about it, but in what context? Read on:

Not … ‘from a worldly point of view’(2 Cor.5:16, NIV) 

‘So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer’ (2 Cor.5:16, NIV). How the world sees us and judges us is different to the way God sees us and judges us. There is a worldly point of view, and there is a godly point of view. In the eyes of God, as true believers, we are righteous because Christ is our righteousness. The world looks upon us differently. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote: ‘For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of a procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe …’ (1 Cor.4:9, NIV). Who did this? … God. According to Paul, God had made the apostles to be viewed as foolish and weak: ‘the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world’ (1 Cor.4:9-13, NIV). There is an outward appearance and an inner reality. God allowed the apostles to go hungry and thirsty; to be in rags and brutally treated; to be homeless, cursed, persecuted and slandered. In the eyes of the world, the apostles were worthless scum. Paul said that they had once regarded Christ in this way–from a worldly point of view (2 Cor.5:16, NIV). Jesus was treated like a common criminal, spat upon, slandered, verbally and physically abused, mocked, scourged, nailed to a cross and left to die. In the eyes of the world, Jesus was sin. The mob had shouted for His death. He was regarded as one who had blasphemed God and who had worked miracles by the power of Satan (Mat.26:65; 9:34). To the Jews, He was despised as one who had wished to usurp authority and to destroy the law given to Moses. To the Romans, He was a cause of disorder. To the world, the apostles were ‘the smell of death’ (2 Cor.2:16, NIV), but to God ‘the aroma of Christ’ (2 Cor.2:15, NIV). 

On the cross, ‘Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’ (Eph.5:2, NIV). Jesus did this for us. This was how Christ presented Himself to God, but this was not how He appeared to the world. 

We must not take a verse of scripture out of context. This verse: ‘God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor.5:21), is a verse which must be viewed in the context of the passage, the whole letter, and Paul’s related comments in his first letter to the Corinthians and other letters. When we do this, we will not take a worldly view of the cross. In the One whom the world judged as sin we have become the righteousness of God. Amongst the Corinthians were those who were judging Paul by outward appearance: ‘You are looking only on the surface of things’ (2 Cor.10:7, NIV). Some people were saying that in person he was ‘unimpressive’, that his speaking ‘amounted to nothing’ (2 Cor.10:10, NIV) and demanded proof that he was speaking for Christ: ‘You are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me’ (2 Cor.13:3, NIV). As a way of confirming his calling, Paul chose not so much to speak of the signs of an apostle, which he had wrought amongst them: ‘miracles, signs and wonders’ (2 Cor.12:12), but of his sufferings in the likeness of Christ (2 Cor.6:4-10; 10:23-29). Paul’s concern was not for himself: ‘What we are is plain to God’ (2 Cor.5:11, NIV), but was for those who were forming worldly and divisive judgmental attitudes. Therefore, just as it is wrong to judge Christ by surface appearance, as He was judged by those without faith, so we must not judge each other. 

Man had esteemed Christ as one accursed of God (Gal.3:13), smitten and afflicted by Him–but that was only the outward appearance, the view of the world. The Scriptures agree: Christ, ‘through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself unblemished to God’ (Heb.9:14, NIV). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, told his accusers that they had murdered the ‘Righteous One’, predicted by the prophets (Acts 7:52).  The One murdered was righteous. God’s vindication of His Son was the resurrection. 

‘God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things … by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross’ (Col.1:19-20, NKJ). Paul said: ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, (2 Cor.5:19, NKJ). How were we reconciled to God?… ‘We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son’ (Rom.5:10, NKJ). Therefore, we can conclude, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through the death of His Son–who offered Himself unblemished to God, through the eternal Spirit, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. This is biblical and reveals that there was no spiritual separation of the Father and the Son at the time of the atonement. In reality, far from being the embodiment of sin upon the cross, the Scriptures declare that He died righteous, unblemished by sin and at one with God. ‘For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us’(2 Cor.5:21, NKJ) 

An alternative reading of 2 Cor.5:21 renders the word for sin, Gk.: hamartian, as sin-offering (given as a marginal reference in modern translations). This dual interpretation is made possible due to the fact that there is ample precedent for such usage in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (notably: Lev.4:32; 5:6, 7, 8, 9) and in the Hebrew, e.g. Hosea 4:8, ‘They eat up the sin of My people,’ where a single word is used for sin, Hb.: chatta’ah, which can be translated sin-offering. The Greek expression hamartias, meaning sins or sin-offerings, is used in the book of Hebrews in a direct quotation from the Septuagint of Psalm 40:6: ‘In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure,’ Heb.10:6, NKJ. The word ’sacrifices’ has been added for clarity of meaning by translators, but it does not occur in the Greek of either the passage from the psalm or from the letter to the Hebrews. There is no doubt, therefore, that the term was understood to have this application during New Testament times. A modern translation by David Stern renders 2 Cor. 5:21 as: “God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God’s righteousness” (The Jewish New Testament). 

The dual import of Paul’s words in this passage can be understood from the biblical context. It was not the view or judgement of the world that God accepted concerning the sacrifice of His Son. As a sin-offering, Jesus presented Himself as the untainted, pure and perfect offering to God for our sakes, that we, in union with Him, by God’s grace might share in His righteousness and thereby have our sins removed. 

‘The Biblical Revelation of the Cross’ by Norman McIlwain (p.21-23,) 

Read more from the author’s website: www.bible-study-online.org