B
BereanDAD2003
Guest
The Atonement of the Messiah
Planned from the Foundation of the World
I have been feeling, lately, that there is an irreconcilable tension between the way I’ve understood the sin and guilt of man, the atonement of the Christ, and a just God’s ability to forgive sin. Let me write down all of the ideas:
1. People sin and God is offended.
2. God’s Forgiveness Trumps God’s Justice.
3. Messiah’s Atonement is Adequate
I. People Sin and God is Offended
At the risk of exposing a total lack of depth in my understanding of what the Scriptures are all about, I have to admit that there are things about the general way of looking at Christianity that completely baffle me. When I say, “the general way,†I mean Christianity as it typically is presented in the evangelical world all around me. I can say, happily or ignorantly, that I’ve never felt comfortable with the idea that someone, simply by virtue of being born, could inherit sin and the consequent wrath of God. A passage like Matthew 19:14 is enlightening in this regard: “Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When I think about kids and babies, I do not see culpability. All I see is their utter dependency on those larger forms hovering around them. Yes, they are very, very needy, and even insistent about those needs. But as far as knowing that there is right and wrong and choosing to engage in it in defiance of a just Godâ€â€I don’t see it. Nor do I see that the Scriptures teach it. Note a few points from Scripture that help us work out some sort of biblical theology about humankind’s responsibility for sin committed.
Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains†(John 9:41). Jesus considered ignorance an adequate defense against remaining guilty.
Ezekiel wrote about God’s perspective about one person inheriting the sin of another. He said: “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him†(Ezekiel 18:20). No one, by the reality of birth takes on the sins of those who came before him. We each stand on our own.
Paul wrote:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinnedâ€â€for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come (Romans 5:12-14).
While there is a sense in which physical death entered into the world because of the sins of men, it wasn’t as if God were going to hold men accountable for a spiritual consequence for sin unless and until they actually committed it. Adam’s specific sin is the means by which death came into the world. In comparison, Paul points out that Jesus is a fulfillment of the pattern of Adam. In this sense, then, Jesus brings about grace in the same manner as Adam brought about death. Jesus is, then, a second sort of Adam, according to Paul. And “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men†(Romans 5:18). In explanation, then, one can say that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the means by which all men can be saved in the same way that one can say that all men can expect condemnation if they sin. In this sense, then, all men are not saved (though accessing Christ’s sacrifice is available to save them) in the same way that all men are not condemned (though following Adam in sin is the means to become spiritually condemned). While Romans 5, due to its very precise wording by Paul, is a thornier problem requiring thought to unravel, the truth still seems obvious that it is a person’s individual responsibility that causes one to be responsible for personal sin.
To continue the evolution of my thinking about the Atonement of the Messiah, there initially seemed to be no escaping the idea that Jesus would not be born a sinner if, as the general evangelical community declared, a person, any person, is a sinner because he inherits such from Adam. The fact that he had even one human parent, then, seemed to be enough to result in him either being born a sinner as presumably was every descendant of Adam. Otherwise there was always the good old Catholic solution that Jesus’ mother was born without sin so that her son Jesus could be born without sin. This seemed inadequate when compared with a simpler (and a more biblical) solution. Such a miracle is unnecessary, especially if all people are born without sin and become culpable only when they choose to do what they come to know to be wrong. Again, as Jesus words it: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin†(John 9:41).
As it was, Jesus, the Second Adam, chose not to sin while the First Adam willingly disobeyed God’s will for him. That’s theological enough as well as representative of the Jesus-who-could-be-tempted who we read about in Scripture. Keep in mind that while God cannot be tempted, man canâ€â€and Jesus was a man. James 1:13 says: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.†Not only that, but it is most appropriate to compare Jesus’ existence on earth with that of everyone else who lived when he walked the earth and thereafter. Why? In order to destroy the devil: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil†(Hebrews 2:14). This sharing was not partial as regards the nature of Jesus. Again why? Referring to the previous goal of destroying the devil we read: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people [Or “that he might turn aside God's wrath, taking away the sins of the peopleâ€Â] (NIV text and margin translations at Hebrews 2:17).
All of the above directly impacts the concept of how God dealt with man’s guilt before him. What I am trying to say is that no one is culpable for sin until he knows what sin is and chooses to do it.
II. God’s Forgiveness Trumps God’s Justice
I have always been disturbed by this statement: “God is love and he wants to forgive. But God must not violate his justice.†Why? because “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord†(Romans 6:23). The two aspects of God’s nature were, then, set in opposition to one another, with justice trumping God’s fairness in some cosmic scheme of things. In books and sermons where such a point was made, there were frequently some emotional illustrative story like the one about a thief who stole, in one story, to provide for his starving family. The judge declared the man guilty and declared sentence (so many days in jail), then removed his judicial robes and declared that he himself, out of mercy, would serve the time.
Well, while such stories are very nice to hear, and bring tears to one’s eyes in emotional sermons, there is no judicial system where anything like this could ever happen. Punishment for crimes can be probated on contingency of good behavior for a designated period of time; judges have prerogatives and discretion about how severe retribution for crimes have to be in a given case; various crimes to be prosecuted can be variously named so that a potential punishment is essentially negotiated in advance (e.g. someone is killed. The District Attorney can prosecute for either manslaughter or for murder resulting in a sentence, upon conviction, of time to be served as opposed to the death penalty). All of these illustrations are very much not in line with any biblical picture of the way God has revealed truth about sin, punishment, or forgiveness.
These are some things to consider: First, one has to deal with the fact that God has, on occasion completely forgiven people for willful infractions against the law that he has revealed. I think, for example, about the Israelites’ disobedience to the law of Moses regarding specific details in keeping the Passover. In 2 Chronicles 30, Hezekiah, king of Judah invited all the Israelites to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the restored Passover. But we find that Hezekiah, his officials and everyone in Jerusalem had decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month of their calendar year since they “had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem†(2 Chronicles 30:3). Of course the Legal Code given by Moses provided for the contingency of not celebrating it on the fourteenth day of the first month if people could not get ceremonially clean in time (Numbers 9:6-13). In the situation governed by Hezekiah, however, “most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written†(2 Chronicles 30:18a). What was the solution? Hezekiah prayed for the people, and “the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.†(2 Chronicles 30:18b, 20).
Another illustration can be seen in the poetic maskil of Asaph which appears at Psalm 78:38-40. Speaking of God (and the thought is repeated several times in the Psalm) we find this description of God:
Yet he was merciful;
he forgave their iniquities
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
and did not stir up his full wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a passing breeze that does not return.
How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wasteland!
Furthermore, recall the case of David and the adultery that he committed with Bathsheba seeking to cover up the sin by having Uriah her husband, and leader in his personal bodyguard, murdered (2 Samuel 11). The Mosaic Code clearly outlawed the specific punishment for adultery: “'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death†(Leviticus 20:10). There was no other provision for adultery in the Law of Moses. Capital punishment was the similar punishment for murder: “Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death†(Numbers 35:31). There was no other provision for murder in the Law of Moses. Yet upon David’s repentance for the crimes, Nathan, God’s prophet declares: “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die†(2 Samuel 12:13). In this case, there were consequences for the sin; the child that Bathsheba conceived for this sexual sin with David was going to die (2 Samuel 12:14). But this had nothing to do with the standards and personal punishment that had been revealed for murder.
Second (First was that God has, on occasion completely forgiven people for willful infractions against the law that he has revealed), given what I’ve just pointed out, it might be very presumptuous to assume that God deals with sin in a way that makes him tie his own hands. I am challenging the misunderstanding of God that makes his justice trump his forgiveness especially when the evidence shows that “our God is in heaven and he does whatever he wants†(Psalm 115:3) according to a wisdom that surpasses our attempts to explain what he has done and appears to us to be done through biblically arbitrary means. For example, on the basis of passages of Scripture like Romans 3:25-26: “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunishedâ€â€he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.†The idea, not in the text, is that Jesus’ blood flows backward as well as forward, and that any forgiveness that appeared for people in the Old Testament was provided by God on the basis of the blood of the Messiah. With extreme caution should one say anything that would diminish the effectiveness of the sacrificial work of the Christ. But I would also say that it is very presumptuous to say that Christ has done this or that when such is not the case at all.
III. Messiah’s Atonement is Adequate
I have tried to look for a synthesis of the biblical evidence about God’s forgiveness as it, without a lot of explanation, presents itself. The Old Testament says that “the righteous will live by his faith†(Habakuk 2:4; cited by Paul in Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38). This is true despite the fact that the Law of Moses talks about blessings and curses to come to Israel relative to how the Jewish nation did or did not obey the Law (Deuteronomy 11:25-30; 30:1). But as I’ve tried to point out in this piece, from time to time God has dealt with his people in a way that seemed not to be as concerned with a strict adherence to the written code when it came to the people of faith. Note a few cogent points:
God’s ultimate purpose and plan for the world was not to regard the Jewish people per se. Paul reveals that God’s ultimate mystery (present explanation of a formerly held secret) is that there is a “mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.†(Ephesians 3:4b-6). God had a plan to combine Jew and Gentile together under a system, not one based on law, but one based on God’s promises in Christ. Another succinct summary describing the synthesis is the one appearing in Galatians 3:26-28. The Contemporary English Version renders it well:
All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, and you will be given what God has promised.
All of God’s children, then, are conglomerated in a faith system that shows no national regard, neither Jew nor Greek; no social distinction, neither slave nor free; no sexual differentiation, neither male nor female. Rather, as Paul explains it, we are “all one in Christ Jesus†“equal with each other†and designated children of Abraham. Some distinct things about the Abraham’s faith system are these:
1. The Faith of Abraham pre-dates the Law System under Moses.
2. The Faith system invades the legal system given under Moses.
I choose the strong term “invades†because I am trying to communicate this point strongly: Law is Trumped by Faith and the promises associated with it as far as the Scriptures are concerned. When I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon examples like those I have given. I would be irresponsible not to mention Abraham, a fellow who is not without sin, having presented his own wife as someone the Egyptian Pharaoh could have had as his own (Genesis 12:10-20); having turned his head when his wife Sarah mistreated Hagar, who would be the mother of Ishmael Abraham’s firstborn (Genesis 16); and even having turned out Hagar and the teenager Ishmael into the desert (Genesis 21). King Asa of Judah didn’t completely get rid of the pagan high places in the kingdom, and even punished a prophet of the Lord who had tried to correct a period of unfaithfulness in Asa’s life. Yet he is said to have done “what was right in the eyes of the LORD , as his father David had done†(1 Kings 15:11) and to have had a heart that “was fully committed to the LORD all his life†(1 Kings 15:14; cf. 2 Chronicles 14:2; 15:17; 2 Chronicles 16:6-11). Faithfulness from God’s perspective, then, has not meant that one was legally perfect in doing all the will of God so much as it has meant seeking to stay on the right path and trying to have a good heart pleasing to God.
Additionally, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology, which speaks of the Mosaic Code as being “obsolete,†and “aging†and soon to disappear (from the chronological perspective of the author in Hebrews 11:13).
Furthermore, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology which speaks of the faith system as a New Covenant that God had with his people (Hebrews 8:8-13). God worked with Israel on the basis of a covenant relationship. But as we have seen, covenantal fidelity is not without accommodation to human frailty (e.g. Abraham, David, Asa, and others). What the book of Hebrews does, however, is to stress what Robert Hach has, I believe, correctly identified as relationship with the Messiah. God fulfills his promise to bless all nations in the seed of Abraham [cf. Genesis 18:17-19; 22:17-19; repeated by God to Abraham’s son Isaac in Genesis 26:3-5; see Galatians 3:7-9], the Messiah's faith must take the place of the law of Moses in the individual lives and the collective life of God’s people (Hach 85). Paul talks about the “faith of Christ†in several passages. I cite the King James Version which brings out Paul’s attention given to the Greek form of the terminology:
1. Paul speaks of “the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe†(Romans 3:22). He says that this righteousness is something that is “apart from the Law†in v. 21.
2. Paul says that we are justified by the faith of Christ and not by works of the Law (Galatians 2:16).
3. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me†(Galatians 2:20).
4. Paul speaks about our hope in receiving the promises of God (mainly tied up in this passage with forgiveness from sin) and given to us by the faith of Christ when we believe or have faith in Christ (Galatians 3:21-23).
5. Paul speaks of how he desired to be “found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith†(Philippians 3:9).
Also, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology which speaks of being justified or found righteous by God--not on the basis of the works that we do, but rather on the basis of the relationship that is integral and, dare I say “mystical,†in Christ. Jesus prayed to his Father in John 17. He said, “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus the Messiah, whom you have sent†(John 17:3). He asks that believers would be “one†in the sense that he was “one†with the Father: “I pray . . . that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me†(John 17:20, 21). Ultimately all of this is tied up in the foundational presupposition behind the way God has said he would deal with the Messianic dynasty, for instance in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 (compare with Psalm 89). A careful reading of that passage will show that God had chosen to prove faithful to his “son†even if he didn’t live perfectly:
2 Samuel 7
12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. 15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever befor your throne will be established forever.' "
While this is legitimately demonstrated in God’s willingness to stick with the Davidic dynasty when they were bad from time to time, occasionally punishing them by “the rod of man,†ultimately the final Super Messiah (Paul’s Son-of-God-in-Power appointed [Greek orizo] to be so by his resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4) was all that his Son needed to be, having chosen not to sin, thus qualifying him for all that God had ever intended when the Plan was made up before the foundation of the world. Are we sinless? No. But are we “in Christ†or “in the Messiah� Yes. Our integral unity with him, expressed practically in our relationship with one another, is the bottom line reality of what it means to have come into relationship with Christ. His Atonement satisfies God, causes him to turn away from our sinfulness and declare us “right†or “righteous†because of our relationship with the Christ.
BereanDAD
Planned from the Foundation of the World
I have been feeling, lately, that there is an irreconcilable tension between the way I’ve understood the sin and guilt of man, the atonement of the Christ, and a just God’s ability to forgive sin. Let me write down all of the ideas:
1. People sin and God is offended.
2. God’s Forgiveness Trumps God’s Justice.
3. Messiah’s Atonement is Adequate
I. People Sin and God is Offended
At the risk of exposing a total lack of depth in my understanding of what the Scriptures are all about, I have to admit that there are things about the general way of looking at Christianity that completely baffle me. When I say, “the general way,†I mean Christianity as it typically is presented in the evangelical world all around me. I can say, happily or ignorantly, that I’ve never felt comfortable with the idea that someone, simply by virtue of being born, could inherit sin and the consequent wrath of God. A passage like Matthew 19:14 is enlightening in this regard: “Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When I think about kids and babies, I do not see culpability. All I see is their utter dependency on those larger forms hovering around them. Yes, they are very, very needy, and even insistent about those needs. But as far as knowing that there is right and wrong and choosing to engage in it in defiance of a just Godâ€â€I don’t see it. Nor do I see that the Scriptures teach it. Note a few points from Scripture that help us work out some sort of biblical theology about humankind’s responsibility for sin committed.
Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains†(John 9:41). Jesus considered ignorance an adequate defense against remaining guilty.
Ezekiel wrote about God’s perspective about one person inheriting the sin of another. He said: “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him†(Ezekiel 18:20). No one, by the reality of birth takes on the sins of those who came before him. We each stand on our own.
Paul wrote:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinnedâ€â€for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come (Romans 5:12-14).
While there is a sense in which physical death entered into the world because of the sins of men, it wasn’t as if God were going to hold men accountable for a spiritual consequence for sin unless and until they actually committed it. Adam’s specific sin is the means by which death came into the world. In comparison, Paul points out that Jesus is a fulfillment of the pattern of Adam. In this sense, then, Jesus brings about grace in the same manner as Adam brought about death. Jesus is, then, a second sort of Adam, according to Paul. And “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men†(Romans 5:18). In explanation, then, one can say that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the means by which all men can be saved in the same way that one can say that all men can expect condemnation if they sin. In this sense, then, all men are not saved (though accessing Christ’s sacrifice is available to save them) in the same way that all men are not condemned (though following Adam in sin is the means to become spiritually condemned). While Romans 5, due to its very precise wording by Paul, is a thornier problem requiring thought to unravel, the truth still seems obvious that it is a person’s individual responsibility that causes one to be responsible for personal sin.
To continue the evolution of my thinking about the Atonement of the Messiah, there initially seemed to be no escaping the idea that Jesus would not be born a sinner if, as the general evangelical community declared, a person, any person, is a sinner because he inherits such from Adam. The fact that he had even one human parent, then, seemed to be enough to result in him either being born a sinner as presumably was every descendant of Adam. Otherwise there was always the good old Catholic solution that Jesus’ mother was born without sin so that her son Jesus could be born without sin. This seemed inadequate when compared with a simpler (and a more biblical) solution. Such a miracle is unnecessary, especially if all people are born without sin and become culpable only when they choose to do what they come to know to be wrong. Again, as Jesus words it: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin†(John 9:41).
As it was, Jesus, the Second Adam, chose not to sin while the First Adam willingly disobeyed God’s will for him. That’s theological enough as well as representative of the Jesus-who-could-be-tempted who we read about in Scripture. Keep in mind that while God cannot be tempted, man canâ€â€and Jesus was a man. James 1:13 says: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.†Not only that, but it is most appropriate to compare Jesus’ existence on earth with that of everyone else who lived when he walked the earth and thereafter. Why? In order to destroy the devil: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil†(Hebrews 2:14). This sharing was not partial as regards the nature of Jesus. Again why? Referring to the previous goal of destroying the devil we read: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people [Or “that he might turn aside God's wrath, taking away the sins of the peopleâ€Â] (NIV text and margin translations at Hebrews 2:17).
All of the above directly impacts the concept of how God dealt with man’s guilt before him. What I am trying to say is that no one is culpable for sin until he knows what sin is and chooses to do it.
II. God’s Forgiveness Trumps God’s Justice
I have always been disturbed by this statement: “God is love and he wants to forgive. But God must not violate his justice.†Why? because “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord†(Romans 6:23). The two aspects of God’s nature were, then, set in opposition to one another, with justice trumping God’s fairness in some cosmic scheme of things. In books and sermons where such a point was made, there were frequently some emotional illustrative story like the one about a thief who stole, in one story, to provide for his starving family. The judge declared the man guilty and declared sentence (so many days in jail), then removed his judicial robes and declared that he himself, out of mercy, would serve the time.
Well, while such stories are very nice to hear, and bring tears to one’s eyes in emotional sermons, there is no judicial system where anything like this could ever happen. Punishment for crimes can be probated on contingency of good behavior for a designated period of time; judges have prerogatives and discretion about how severe retribution for crimes have to be in a given case; various crimes to be prosecuted can be variously named so that a potential punishment is essentially negotiated in advance (e.g. someone is killed. The District Attorney can prosecute for either manslaughter or for murder resulting in a sentence, upon conviction, of time to be served as opposed to the death penalty). All of these illustrations are very much not in line with any biblical picture of the way God has revealed truth about sin, punishment, or forgiveness.
These are some things to consider: First, one has to deal with the fact that God has, on occasion completely forgiven people for willful infractions against the law that he has revealed. I think, for example, about the Israelites’ disobedience to the law of Moses regarding specific details in keeping the Passover. In 2 Chronicles 30, Hezekiah, king of Judah invited all the Israelites to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the restored Passover. But we find that Hezekiah, his officials and everyone in Jerusalem had decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month of their calendar year since they “had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem†(2 Chronicles 30:3). Of course the Legal Code given by Moses provided for the contingency of not celebrating it on the fourteenth day of the first month if people could not get ceremonially clean in time (Numbers 9:6-13). In the situation governed by Hezekiah, however, “most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written†(2 Chronicles 30:18a). What was the solution? Hezekiah prayed for the people, and “the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.†(2 Chronicles 30:18b, 20).
Another illustration can be seen in the poetic maskil of Asaph which appears at Psalm 78:38-40. Speaking of God (and the thought is repeated several times in the Psalm) we find this description of God:
Yet he was merciful;
he forgave their iniquities
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
and did not stir up his full wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a passing breeze that does not return.
How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wasteland!
Furthermore, recall the case of David and the adultery that he committed with Bathsheba seeking to cover up the sin by having Uriah her husband, and leader in his personal bodyguard, murdered (2 Samuel 11). The Mosaic Code clearly outlawed the specific punishment for adultery: “'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife-with the wife of his neighbor-both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death†(Leviticus 20:10). There was no other provision for adultery in the Law of Moses. Capital punishment was the similar punishment for murder: “Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death†(Numbers 35:31). There was no other provision for murder in the Law of Moses. Yet upon David’s repentance for the crimes, Nathan, God’s prophet declares: “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die†(2 Samuel 12:13). In this case, there were consequences for the sin; the child that Bathsheba conceived for this sexual sin with David was going to die (2 Samuel 12:14). But this had nothing to do with the standards and personal punishment that had been revealed for murder.
Second (First was that God has, on occasion completely forgiven people for willful infractions against the law that he has revealed), given what I’ve just pointed out, it might be very presumptuous to assume that God deals with sin in a way that makes him tie his own hands. I am challenging the misunderstanding of God that makes his justice trump his forgiveness especially when the evidence shows that “our God is in heaven and he does whatever he wants†(Psalm 115:3) according to a wisdom that surpasses our attempts to explain what he has done and appears to us to be done through biblically arbitrary means. For example, on the basis of passages of Scripture like Romans 3:25-26: “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunishedâ€â€he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.†The idea, not in the text, is that Jesus’ blood flows backward as well as forward, and that any forgiveness that appeared for people in the Old Testament was provided by God on the basis of the blood of the Messiah. With extreme caution should one say anything that would diminish the effectiveness of the sacrificial work of the Christ. But I would also say that it is very presumptuous to say that Christ has done this or that when such is not the case at all.
III. Messiah’s Atonement is Adequate
I have tried to look for a synthesis of the biblical evidence about God’s forgiveness as it, without a lot of explanation, presents itself. The Old Testament says that “the righteous will live by his faith†(Habakuk 2:4; cited by Paul in Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38). This is true despite the fact that the Law of Moses talks about blessings and curses to come to Israel relative to how the Jewish nation did or did not obey the Law (Deuteronomy 11:25-30; 30:1). But as I’ve tried to point out in this piece, from time to time God has dealt with his people in a way that seemed not to be as concerned with a strict adherence to the written code when it came to the people of faith. Note a few cogent points:
God’s ultimate purpose and plan for the world was not to regard the Jewish people per se. Paul reveals that God’s ultimate mystery (present explanation of a formerly held secret) is that there is a “mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.†(Ephesians 3:4b-6). God had a plan to combine Jew and Gentile together under a system, not one based on law, but one based on God’s promises in Christ. Another succinct summary describing the synthesis is the one appearing in Galatians 3:26-28. The Contemporary English Version renders it well:
All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, and you will be given what God has promised.
All of God’s children, then, are conglomerated in a faith system that shows no national regard, neither Jew nor Greek; no social distinction, neither slave nor free; no sexual differentiation, neither male nor female. Rather, as Paul explains it, we are “all one in Christ Jesus†“equal with each other†and designated children of Abraham. Some distinct things about the Abraham’s faith system are these:
1. The Faith of Abraham pre-dates the Law System under Moses.
2. The Faith system invades the legal system given under Moses.
I choose the strong term “invades†because I am trying to communicate this point strongly: Law is Trumped by Faith and the promises associated with it as far as the Scriptures are concerned. When I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon examples like those I have given. I would be irresponsible not to mention Abraham, a fellow who is not without sin, having presented his own wife as someone the Egyptian Pharaoh could have had as his own (Genesis 12:10-20); having turned his head when his wife Sarah mistreated Hagar, who would be the mother of Ishmael Abraham’s firstborn (Genesis 16); and even having turned out Hagar and the teenager Ishmael into the desert (Genesis 21). King Asa of Judah didn’t completely get rid of the pagan high places in the kingdom, and even punished a prophet of the Lord who had tried to correct a period of unfaithfulness in Asa’s life. Yet he is said to have done “what was right in the eyes of the LORD , as his father David had done†(1 Kings 15:11) and to have had a heart that “was fully committed to the LORD all his life†(1 Kings 15:14; cf. 2 Chronicles 14:2; 15:17; 2 Chronicles 16:6-11). Faithfulness from God’s perspective, then, has not meant that one was legally perfect in doing all the will of God so much as it has meant seeking to stay on the right path and trying to have a good heart pleasing to God.
Additionally, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology, which speaks of the Mosaic Code as being “obsolete,†and “aging†and soon to disappear (from the chronological perspective of the author in Hebrews 11:13).
Furthermore, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology which speaks of the faith system as a New Covenant that God had with his people (Hebrews 8:8-13). God worked with Israel on the basis of a covenant relationship. But as we have seen, covenantal fidelity is not without accommodation to human frailty (e.g. Abraham, David, Asa, and others). What the book of Hebrews does, however, is to stress what Robert Hach has, I believe, correctly identified as relationship with the Messiah. God fulfills his promise to bless all nations in the seed of Abraham [cf. Genesis 18:17-19; 22:17-19; repeated by God to Abraham’s son Isaac in Genesis 26:3-5; see Galatians 3:7-9], the Messiah's faith must take the place of the law of Moses in the individual lives and the collective life of God’s people (Hach 85). Paul talks about the “faith of Christ†in several passages. I cite the King James Version which brings out Paul’s attention given to the Greek form of the terminology:
1. Paul speaks of “the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe†(Romans 3:22). He says that this righteousness is something that is “apart from the Law†in v. 21.
2. Paul says that we are justified by the faith of Christ and not by works of the Law (Galatians 2:16).
3. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me†(Galatians 2:20).
4. Paul speaks about our hope in receiving the promises of God (mainly tied up in this passage with forgiveness from sin) and given to us by the faith of Christ when we believe or have faith in Christ (Galatians 3:21-23).
5. Paul speaks of how he desired to be “found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith†(Philippians 3:9).
Also, when I say the faith system invades the legal system, I draw upon terminology which speaks of being justified or found righteous by God--not on the basis of the works that we do, but rather on the basis of the relationship that is integral and, dare I say “mystical,†in Christ. Jesus prayed to his Father in John 17. He said, “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus the Messiah, whom you have sent†(John 17:3). He asks that believers would be “one†in the sense that he was “one†with the Father: “I pray . . . that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me†(John 17:20, 21). Ultimately all of this is tied up in the foundational presupposition behind the way God has said he would deal with the Messianic dynasty, for instance in 2 Samuel 7:12-16 (compare with Psalm 89). A careful reading of that passage will show that God had chosen to prove faithful to his “son†even if he didn’t live perfectly:
2 Samuel 7
12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. 15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever befor your throne will be established forever.' "
While this is legitimately demonstrated in God’s willingness to stick with the Davidic dynasty when they were bad from time to time, occasionally punishing them by “the rod of man,†ultimately the final Super Messiah (Paul’s Son-of-God-in-Power appointed [Greek orizo] to be so by his resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4) was all that his Son needed to be, having chosen not to sin, thus qualifying him for all that God had ever intended when the Plan was made up before the foundation of the world. Are we sinless? No. But are we “in Christ†or “in the Messiah� Yes. Our integral unity with him, expressed practically in our relationship with one another, is the bottom line reality of what it means to have come into relationship with Christ. His Atonement satisfies God, causes him to turn away from our sinfulness and declare us “right†or “righteous†because of our relationship with the Christ.
BereanDAD