Upon the pronouncement of God,
sinners are under His just
condemnation. Their guilt is clearly established, and just punishment
awaits
them. And it is right that they suffer the consequences that is brought
to
them, for they are worthy to be punished. They ought to be punished.
They must
stand to be punished, for they have sinned against the Holy and
Righteous God.
The banishment to the eternal
burning in the lake of fire is the
just and proper end that sin has earned. This assignment is more than a
mere
separation from the joy that is felt by those who are related to God,
and it is
more than being denied His presence. It is not limited to this lack of
fellowship with The Sovereign.
Punishment for sin is just
that. It is punishment for sin. It is
not the chastening of a Righteous Father, although it is in
righteousness that
God acts toward those who would not have Him to rule over them in this
life.
Remember that chastening is directed toward sons, legitimate sons, and
never
toward those who are not sons.
No basis can be found to
suggest that the fires of punishment are
intended to be purging in their character. They are indeed fires of
punishment.
They are so designed, and it is with intent that they inflict
punishment.
Therefore, we see that the nature of the atonement is punitive.
Because
the sin of man is an open and direct affront to the Holy, Righteous
nature of
God, nothing less than a total and absolute rendering of exact,
distinct, and
suitable ransom price be paid in order to satisfy the just claim that
God
demands, and that the sinner rightly owes to Him, which just debt MUST
be paid.
Thus,
we read, in prophetic language that is undeniable, “I am poured out like water, and
all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in
the midst
of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue
cleaveth
to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs
have
compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced
my
hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare
upon me.
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture” (Psalms
And
this: “Surely he
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our
peace was upon
him; and with his stripes we are healed”
(Isaiah 53:4, 5).
And
this also: “Awake,
O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my
fellow,
saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be
scattered:
and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones” (Zechariah
13:7).
And
then this as well: “Who was delivered for our offences, and was
raised again
for our justification” (Romans
The
punishment that God inflicts is of infinite severity and scope, for the
sin
against His Holiness is infinite in severity and scope. His Holy
justice
demands, and rightly so, a punishment that is infinite in severity and
scope,
and man, who has so grievously sinned against Him is destitute of means
as well
as will to render such payment. So apart from a Substitute, a Surety to
pay
what justice demands, must eternally pay, and be punished everlastingly
in the
lake of fire.
Not only must the atonement
meet the requirement that punishment
be dispatched, it must also be substitutive in its nature as well. By
this I
mean that One must atone for the sins of another, since the sinning one
is,
because of his unworthy nature, disqualified to atone for himself. He
cannot
redeem himself because sin has rendered his blood to be unsuitable and
unacceptable to be offered to a Holy God.
When we look closely at the
stipulated requirements that God
specifies in Leviticus, chapter 25 concerning the
redeeming of
possessions and persons, we find this to be so. In this chapter, God
makes it
very plain and clear that a kinsman ONLY can redeem, and that this
kinsman must
have suitable ransom price to pay in order to redeem.
It is true that man could be
said to be his own kinsman, thus
apparently rendering himself as his own redeemer. However, because man
is a
sinner, his redeeming element, the life, or the blood of himself is in
no way
acceptable to make atonement for his own soul. His life, as it is seen
to be in
his blood, is corrupt and evil in its own nature, and will not be
suitable as a
ransom. And it is sin that has done this. The same sin that brought
about the
need for man’s redemption has disqualified man from being able to save
himself,
or another. Man cannot save himself, and a mere man cannot save
another.
Kinsman ship alone will not enable a man to redeem. There must be
kinsman ship,
as God has specified. And there must also be suitable price. And since
man has
no acceptable price to bring, a substitutionary price must be paid if
man is
ever to go free. Substitution, therefore, is the nature of the
atonement.
But substitution that is said
to be vicarious is what is demanded
by God, and graciously supplied in the Person of Jesus Christ. In order
for
suffering to be vicarious, it must be suffering that is not only borne
in the
place of another, but also, and essentially so, in the stead of another.
If one should willingly offer
himself to suffer in the place of
another, this act would indeed be substitutionary in its nature, but
that act
would not in and of itself meet the Holy demands that God’s justice
requires.
Let me explain what I mean. If
one agrees to stand in the place of
another, he is agreeing to suffer in behalf of the other, or for his
immediate
benefit. But if the “stand in” is to be also vicarious, then it must
also be
done in the stead of the one for whom it is suffered.
Our Substitute or Surety who
with full accord with the will of His
Father must stand in compliance with the stipulations of the Covenant
to which
the Godhead have agreed and confirmed in eternity in which the Father
hath
chosen, and to which the Son agreed (covenanted) to stand as Surety, in
their
place, room, and stead. This means that in eternity Jesus Christ stood
as the
Surety for our sins debt
(infinite debt)
when as yet we had no debt seeing as how at that point
we had no sin, nor were we even a being, for we were not yet created.
In time, we having been
created, and having sinned in Adam, and in
Adam had fallen, became obliged to pay the price of our sin, or have a
Surety
to whom the charges had already been laid, and to whose account
retribution
would be demanded and in due time paid who would vicariously and
substitionarily stand in our stead.
We had sinned and He stood in
our place to be punished and in our
stead bore all our quilt and penalty and clothed us in His righteous
robe and
will present us to the Father, spotless.
Now also, we see that the
atonement must be expiatory in its
nature. The atonement, in order to be effective must expiate sin. It
must
provide whatever is necessary that sins be dealt with, both in guilt
and in
removal and restoration to a previously held state of perfectness, as
at
creation.
The spot and stain of sin must
be done away. Else, there will
remain the odiousness of it. The sinner must be cleansed from all
semblance of
sin. It must be put away, or it will most surely remain.
Remembering that man is
actually a “double-dyed” sinner, he must
be fully cleansed before he can stand in the presence of God. He cannot
even
approach God so long as there remains any trace or evidence of sin ever
having
contaminated him.
By “double-dyed”, we mean that
man sinned in Adam, and then sinned
in himself. He is guilty of original sin that has condemned Adam and
all his
seed. He is also guilty of the sins that he has committed in himself,
even from
his departure from the womb of his mother (c.f.
The fiber of man is stained and
dyed by original sin. The fabric
of man is dyed afresh as man goes forth as a sinning sinner. Both in
warp and
woof, man is a desperately wicked sinner. And he must be completely
cleansed,
or else his sin remains.
This awful condition makes it
clear that in order for man to be
justified with God, his guilt must be removed and he must also be
restored to
the state of moral perfectness that Adam enjoyed from the Hand of his
Creator,
and until sin ruined him. Both removal and restoration therefore must
be
accomplished.
Expiation must take place, and
only Christ in His willing
substitution of Himself in the stead of His guilty people can insure
that this
circumstance takes place. “For he
hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might
be made the righteousness of God in” (II Corinthians
Since sin must be expiated by
rendering
of suitable and exact ransom price, and since man, because of his
utterly
depraved nature that has left him totally destitute of the means and
will to
pay that he owes, stands helpless before his creditor to whom he owes
the debt.
He is hopelessly unable to satisfy
his
obligation, and therefore found worthy to be eternally punished for his
sin(s)
that he has willfully committed against the Holy God.
But
Christ, in His suffering that was both vicarious and substitutionary in
its
nature has fully and totally expiated the sin of those He stood Surety,
as a
Lamb slain in their room and stead. He has completely and everlastingly
removed
their sins from them as far as the east is from the west and they are
forever
gone, never to be remembered against them, forever.
Expiation
is the work that Christ, in His suffering accomplished and has
reference to the
work which accrued manward. It is what He has done for us. It is His
gracious
work of taking our sin upon Himself and removing it from us.
Then too, the atonement must be
propitiatory in its nature. It
must produce and provide satisfaction unto a Holy God, Who has been
sinned
against. For if God is not propitiated, then sin still remains. And
were this
to be the case, then sinners would still remain under the condemnation,
and God’s
wrath would still be upon them. God must be propitiated (satisfied),
and when
He is satisfied, then those sinners who have satisfied Him must go free.
Please take note of this last
statement above. When sinners have
satisfied God, then they go free! But sinners do not and can not
satisfy God
with their evil, corrupt, and imperfect offerings. However, Christ can
and does
satisfy God in their stead. Thus, it is clear that the elect sinner
satisfies
God. Not in himself, but in Christ. That is where satisfaction is
found, and no
place else. It is in Christ Jesus that sinners satisfy God.
Now when this glorious
satisfaction is done, they go free! They go
free! They MUST go free, for satisfaction has been made. When
satisfaction is
made, it is unthinkable that those for whom satisfaction has been made
will
remain as slaves to sin and Satan. They have been freed by the Stronger
than the
strong man, thus, they go free.
The atonement is, and must of
necessity be a work that is federal
in its essential nature. There must be and must have been a connection
between
the persons who required that satisfaction, or atonement be made and
the Person
who stood from eternity as the Effectuator of the needful satisfaction.
There
must be a federal connection between Jesus Christ and all those, each
and every
one of those, that He willingly and graciously represented.
When the Scriptures speak of a
covenant people, they speak of a
union, indeed a covenant union between God and a people. For example,
we read
of a people that are viewed as a people that are seen as in Christ, as
in
Clearly the seed of Abraham is
Christ, just as surely as “the
seed of the woman”, in
This covenant union, this
oneness with Christ, is a union of legal
requirement and it surely bears legal consequence. When Christ
covenanted to
stand for and in the stead of His covenant people, He covenanted to not
only
legally bear their sin and the required vicarious suffering, but to die
as the
result of His Suretyship to do so.
William Shedd, writing in about
1889-90 said, in this matter: “When,
in the Old Testament, the elect are spoken of as the party with whom
God makes
a covenant, they are viewed as in Christ and one with Him. The covenant
is not
with them as alone and apart from Christ. This is taught in
And James Haldane, in his work,
Doctrine of the Atonement wrote
this: “Christ is not only the Substitute but the Surety of His people.
The
Gospel is founded on the fact that Adam and Christ are covenant heads
and
representatives of their respective families. Hence, they are termed ‘the
first man’ and ‘the second man’ (I Corinthians
So, in summation of all this,
we conclude that the federal nature
of the atonement, or satisfaction that God’s Holy nature demands, and
that He,
in the Second Person of the Holy Trinity provides is as much a
necessity as all
the other of His Holy demands and gracious provisions.
What is the nature of the
atonement? The atonement is punitive
(penal) in its nature. The atonement is substitutive in its nature. The
atonement is expiatory in its nature. The atonement is propitiatory in
its
nature. And the atonement is federal in its nature. All the elements
express
what the atonement is, and what it was designed and intended to
accomplish as
God purposed eternally.
What is the nature of the
atonement? The nature of the atonement
is displayed in that of an atonement the actually and completely
atones. It is
able to do exactly what God intended for it to do. It atones, or fully
satisfies each and every righteous demand that His Holy nature
requires.
Success is assured because the atonement or covering, or Mercy Seat is
provided. He, Jesus Christ becomes our Mercy Seat, and He has truly
made
atonement for His people. Praise God, we have an Atonement that atones.
(The Baptist Herald - July, 1990)