On faith, reason, and theology.

In light of our upcoming sermon series on the cross, it will be helpful to define penal substitution, the particular doctrine that is intimated by the name of our series, “In My Place Condemned He Stood”. Here is a good Trinitarian definition from the book Pierced For Our Transgressions: Recovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. It should be read slowly and meditatively — weighing the deep gospel truths in each sentence.
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“The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin. This summary can be expanded to give some sense of how the doctrine connects with other important biblical themes.

God the Father gave his Son to save rebellious, God-hating people, knowing that he would be despised and rejected by those he had made, that he would be a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. He spared sinful people from condemnation, death and punishment, but he did not spare his own beloved Son, with whom he was well pleased.

God the Son gave himself, willingly undertaking the task appointed for him by his Father. He veiled his glory in a human body, experienced every temptation we face without succumbing to any, and lived a perfect human life. Yet he took our sin and guilt upon himself and died a cursed death, suffering in his human nature the infinite torment of the wrath and fury of his Father. After three days he was vindicated in his resurrection before being exalted to his heavenly throne. From there he rules his kingdom, awaiting the day of his glorious appearing when every eye shall see him, every knee bow before him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

God the Holy Spirit, having been sent by the Father and the Son, now works in our hearts through the proclamation of the gospel to convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment, to draw us to Christ in repentance and faith, and so to unite us to Christ that we may share in every blessing he has won for us.

God the Holy Trinity thus turned aside his own righteous wrath against sinful humanity; endured and exhausted the curse of the law that stood against us; cleansed us from our sin and clothed us in Christ’s righteousness; ransomed us from our slavery to sin, the world and the devil by paying our debt, canceling the devil’s power of accusation against us, and liberating us to live new lives empowered by the Spirit; triumphed over all evil powers by punishing evil in the person of the Son; and reconciled us with himself by removing the barrier of sin and enmity between us; in order that we may stand blameless and forgiven in his glorious presence, credited with the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as adopted children of God, gazing upon his face for all eternity.

God vindicated his truthfulness by remaining faithful to his promise that sin will be punished; he manifested his justice by punishing sin and acquitting the righteous; he glorified his name by exalting his Son and placing all things under his feet; and he demonstrated his love by dying for sinners and reconciling to himself those who were once his enemies.”

Most religions focus on the extraordinary life of their founder, whose death is more or less a footnote in his/her story. But Christians treat the death of their founder as the very pinnacle of his story. In fact, they celebrate his death every time they gather. They decorate their buildings and their necks with crosses, which would be the modern-day equivalent of putting an electric chair on top of your church steeple or wearing a hangman’s noose around your neck.

Why do Christians celebrate such a gruesome form of criminal execution for their beloved founder? Christians are truly strange in this way! But the reason we focus so much attention on the death of Jesus is because it was the reason for his life. He came to earth that he may die a brutal death on a cross. So if you want to understand Jesus, then you need to understand his death and know its significance for you.

So let’s consider three significant facts concerning his death:

The Darkness (Mark 15:33)
Mark notes that at the hour of Jesus’ crucifixion, a supernatural darkness came over the whole land. We know it was supernatural because his crucifixion took place at “the sixth hour” which is equivalent to noon, when the sun is at its highest. Now skeptics have argued that it must have been a solar eclipse that the people witnessed. But that is astronomically impossible. Jesus was crucified during the Jewish celebration of the Passover, which was celebrated according to a lunar calendar on a full moon. During a full moon, the earth is between the sun and the moon, but for a solar eclipse to occur, the moon has to be between the sun and the earth. Knowing this, the Gospel writers believed the darkness to be supernatural. So what did it signify?

In biblical imagery, it was common to use light to represent God’s favor and darkness to represent his anger or judgement. So the supernatural darkness that covered the land at the very moment of Jesus’ death symbolically suggests that God was angry with someone and was carrying out his judgement on someone. Of course this begs the question, “With who?? On who??”

The Cry (Mark 15:34-37)
God’s anger and judgement was unleashed on Jesus as he hung on the cross, leading to his “cry of dereliction”. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His cry testified to the pain he was experiencing. Not just a physical pain but a deep spiritual pain in the form of forsakenness. God’s ultimate punishment for sin is to forsake the sinner. That means to completely cut off the individual from the joys of his presence, his favor, his grace. Every person alive presently experiences those joys, to one degree or another, even if they dont realize it. But if they die, having never turned to Christ in faith, then they will be cut off — they will be forsaken by God. That is essentially what hell is.

Now consider the magnitude of what Jesus must have felt on the cross. Jesus the Son of God has lived in perfect love and communion with God the Father for all eternity, so to be forsaken by his Father was far more painful than the nails in his hands and feet. Think about a good relationship you’ve lost (either because of death, distance, or a misunderstanding). Your relationship may have been good and may have lasted many years, thus the pain you feel is real. But in order to grasp Jesus’ pain, you must multiply your pain by infinity. The relationship between Father and Son was infinitely perfect and stretches infinitely into the past.

The point is that Jesus truly was agonizing in pain on the cross. Physical pain, yes. But even more so, he was experiencing a spiritual forsakenness as a punishment for sin. He was receiving the full measure of God’s anger and judgement against sin.

But why? Jesus lived a life of perfect submission to God his Father. He never sinned. He did nothing to provoke God’s anger or deserve his punishment. So whose sin was he being punished for? Answer: The sin of sinners like us. We deserve to be forsaken by God but Jesus willingly took the place of sinners by dying on the cross. The Father forsook his Son, so that he would not have to forsake those for whom Jesus died as a substitute (1 Pt 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21)

On the cross, Jesus, in a real sense, became the most sinful man the world has ever seen because the sins of millions and billions of believers in every age and place were poured into his body. And on the cross, God the Father punished those sins completely by pouring on his Son all the anger and judgement that should have fallen on sinners. Because Jesus’ took their punishment, sinners can be pardoned and reconciled to God.

The Curtain (Mark 15:38-39)
At the moment of Jesus’ death, Mark records that the curtain in the temple (estimated to be 60 feet high) was torn from top to bottom. The curtain was used to separate the people from the room in the temple where God’s glory resided. It was a constant reminder that God and people were separated because of their sin. But when Jesus died, God tore the curtain, thereby demonstrating that sinners can now be reconciled to him through the death of his Son. Through relying on Jesus, we have free access into the throne room of God. We can now have a relationship with him.

But to receive the benefits of Jesus’ death (ie. the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God) you must turn to Christ in faith. Those who reject Christ are basically telling God, “I don’t want Jesus to bear my sins on the cross. I want to bear it myself when I stand before you.” And God, with a grieved heart, will respect that decision on the Day of Judgement. May we all, by faith, embrace Christ and his substitutionary death this Easter weekend.