[audio]
Romans 3:21- 26
Preached 9/1/2019 (previous)
INTRODUCTION
As I have had the privilege of preaching occasionally from this pulpit we have gone through various passages and subjects over the years, always going slowly because I have been filling in just when pastor Glen is sick or out of town. This message is part of a series that we actually started almost two years ago back in November of 2017. Since that time, we have been on a slow walk through the book of Romans. Paul lays out his wonderful book masterfully and in a very logical order.
- The first eleven chapters teach about the doctrine of how we can be made right with God, and the second part of the book teaches us how to live as redeemed children of God.
- The first section first talks about why we need salvation, then how we can be saved, and then what salvation consists of.
In the first two sermons in this series (two years ago) we went through the first 2 ½ chapters of Romans, talking about the scandal of heaven. What is this scandal? The scandal is not that we have sinnned - this is a given. The scandal is this: we, and the entire human race, have sinned terribly and consistently against the holy and righteous and just and infinite creator of the entire universe, but we are still here. That is the scandal!
Paul starts his treatise on the gospel with the observation that
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
So if God is a righteous judge, then swift and immediate judgment from Him is a requirement from his very nature. Yet He lets us live, He shows mercy, and He continues to interact with the human race even as the entire race continues to rebel, destroy each other, and spit in his face. It is no secret that Satan and his fallen companions find this objectionable – as far back as the book of Job we find him bringing up the sin of people before God, and there is an implied “if you are so holy and just, how are these people avoiding your immediate judgment?” Even those angels who did not rebel are said by Peter (in 1 Peter 1:12) to “long to look” into God’s plan. In other words, the mercy of God toward us creates a tension – a contradiction. As the prophet Jeremiah wrote (31:30a) “everyone shall die for his own iniquity.”, and Ezekiel wrote (18:20) “the soul who sins shall die”, Isaiah (6:2-3) was given a vision of God surrounded by seraphim who constantly said “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" Peter (in 2 Peter 3) quotes “scoffers” as pointing out this problem of delayed judgment and attributes the delay to the “patience” of God who “is not willing that any should perish”. But “patience” is not a legal solution to the problem – eventually a judge who keeps putting off sentencing of the guilty over and over will be accused of unjustness or favoritism. The question eventually boils down to this: if God is going to justify the ungodly, how could He be just? How can God “be just and the justifier”?
Earlier this summer we came to the answer – the gospel and the atonement of Christ. In this masterful act God proves himself to be (as Paul writes in Romans 3:26 “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”. And the content of this salvation is shown in verses 24-25 as having three components:
- Justification,
- Redemption, and
- Propitiation
In Part 2 we discussed these three elements and said that they make up what is called the Atonement. We saw that the concept of Atonement is found all through scripture. The Hebrew word kāpar (“make atonement”) appears more than 100 times in the OT in sacrificial contexts, and it means “to propitiate God’s wrath, expiate sins, and restore fellowship between God and sinners.” You can think of it this way – sin separates us from God, but the Atonement makes us to be “At One” with God again.
The Old Testament sacrifices allowed the nation of Israel to exist with “God in their midst” but they only covered the sins. They held off God’s wrath, but did not eliminate it, because, as the writer of the book of Hebrews wrote “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins”. But God did not just provide a stop-gap and leave us hanging. Hebrews continues with the good news that God had sent a better high priest, Jesus, with a better sacrifice, Himself. And unlike the Aaronic priests, with their animal sacrifices, Jesus’ one-time sacrifice worked “once for all”. In fact, this phrase is repeated over and over in the book of Hebrews, as if the author wanted to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that nobody would miss the point:
Hebrews 7:27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
Hebrews 9:12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. ...
Hebrews 9:26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Hebrews 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
So if we are to understand “our great salvation”, we need to fully understand the atonement made by Jesus Christ!
I. Different Views
Unfortunately, (but not surprisingly), the doctrine of the atonement has been one that has been misunderstood, maligned, distorted, re-imagined, and generally attacked for millennia. At this church we have pretty consistently taught what is called the “penal substitution” view, which is that Jesus Christ died in our place to take the penalty for our sins and that his righteousness was then reckoned to us as part of the same transaction. Though this is perhaps an oversimplification we often put it this way: “when God looks at me He sees the righteousness of Christ.” This is consistent with verses like
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
and
Isaiah 53:5-6, 10a 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ... 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
But there are many so-called churches that consider this doctrine to be unacceptable. Just like the concepts of the universality of human guilt and the human inability to save one’s self, the idea of substitutionary atonement is offensive to human pride and understanding. So what to other churches believe? Here are five of the more popular theories of the atonement:
I-1. The Classic (or Ransom) Theory was a very popular view during much of the first 1100 years of church history. Based on Mark 10:45 “… the Son of Man came … to give his life as a ransom for many.” this theory said that the ransom paid by Jesus was not to God, but to the devil, who had enslaved the human race through sin. In fact, some taught that Jesus became human to hide his deity so that Satan would take the bait and accept Jesus in place of the human race, freeing us from bondage to Satan and allowing us to come to God while Satan took Jesus to hell to torment him. But SURPRISE! Satan found out that Jesus was also God and was not able to hold him in prison, so Jesus then rose from the grave in triumph. In this way, Jesus’ humanity was “the bait covering the fishhook of his deity on which the Devil was snared”. As the victor over Satan, Jesus triumphed over the law, sin, death and the Devil, freeing captive sinners and giving them eternal life. As one writer puts it “[this] victor motif emphasizes Christ’s kingly rather than his priestly office.”
Certainly this view does contain some aspects of the truth. But it leaves out all of the verses that we have already read, and it gives Satan far too much credit. The devil’s power over us is not in his authority over our eternal destiny – the one who judges the wicked and who is shown sending them to the lake of fire in the book of Revelation is God. Satan has no authority to judge because he has already been judged himself. His power consists of lies, temptation, and in the correctness of his observations about the sins of men. He is called the “accuser of the brethren” in scripture – in fact the word devil in the New Testament is the Greek word diabolos, which means “slanderer” or “false accuser”. In fact in his first letter to Timothy, when Paul is listing the requirements for Deacons, when he writes
1 Timothy 3:11 [NASB] Women [must] likewise [be] dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.
The word translated “malicious gossips” (or slanderers) is literally the word diabolos, so the verse could be translated “not devils”. That is the only power Satan has. He is the God of this world because people have willingly joined in rebellion against God with him, not because the devil is ruling over hell or anything like that. That is an unbiblical notion. Hell was made, as John wrote in Revelation, “for the Devil and his angels” and it is there that he will be “tormented forever and ever”. He is no more a ruler in hell than he is a ruler in heaven. God is sovereign everywhere.
I-2. The Satisfaction or Juridicial Theory Later in the middle ages in Europe the idea became popular that the sin of man was primarily an insult to the honor of God as ruler of the universe. In this view, sin was indeed very serious and all mankind was guilty of it, but primarily the death of Christ satisfied God’s wounded honor rather than his wrath against sin. Again, this view is not entirely without connection to reality. Our sin is a rebellion against God and against his authority. This view agrees that the seriousness of our sin is proportional to the dignity of the offended party, who in this case is the infinite God, so only a sufficient sacrifice can assuage that dishonor. This view also posited the necessity of the redeemer to be both God (for his sacrifice to be sufficient) and man (so that He can represent humanity before God). Even John Wycliffe “followed the main lines” of some of the theologians who put forward this view.
This view differs from the Reformed and evangelical view of the Atonement in that it says that Christ’s sacrifice offered “compensation or damages for dishonor done” while “the Reformers saw it as the undergoing of [punishment on our behalf] to meet the claims on us of God’s holy law and … (punitive justice).” This view also appealed later to Roman Catholic thought because of “its theology of penance and merit.” But in the end, scripture tells us that “all our righteousnesses are as filty rags”, and Romans 3:20 frames our passage by stating outright:
Romans 3:20 “… by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight...”
I-3. Exemplarism or the Moral Influence Theory A third view which is popular in liberal churches even today is much more subjective and focuses on Christ only as the great teacher and example for us. In this view, his death is an example that causes a change of attitude in humans, which is all that is needed for our restoration. They say that since God loves us there is no obstacle on his side to our restoration. In other words, in this view Christ’s death “accomplished nothing objective”. Because Jesus went to the cross, we are better able to see God’s great love for us and our resistance to his love will be overcome. This view was first put forward by Peter Abelard (in the 1100’s), who insisted that “Christ did not die to make amends for sin or to deliver captives from Satan’s control. Rather, viewing sin as contempt of God, Abelard depicted Christ’s death as providing compelling demonstration of God suffering with his creatures. The spectacle of Christ impaled on the cross frees people from fear of wrath, melts their stony hearts, and moves them so amend their lives”. The description goes on, but this will suffice I think. This view went through many forms, and was expounded by the father of American liberalism Horace Bushnell (1800’s) who said “It is not that the suffering appeases God, but that it expresses God.” Even in this century this view is popular in liberal churches, and the view is that when people see Christ on the cross they will decide that being good is better because they will see God’s love”[i]
The problem with this theory is how much of the Bible needs to be ignored to even propose it. Almost all of the passages we know that speak of salvation have to be cut out of the scriptures, and God’s own justice and holiness are compromised – sin is not such a big deal because it only makes us think that we are separated from God, not the other way around. So I am not going to spend any more time bothering to refute it.
I-4. Government or Rectoral Theory A fourth view states that Christ did not bear the full penalty of human sin or propitiate God’s wrath. Instead, it was “a token, rather than a full or equivalent, payment to God for human sins.” This view was originally put forward by a student of Arminius named Hugo Grotius, who taught that God could have relaxed his law and set aside the requirement that sinners be punished at any time, but He needed to uphold his moral governance of the universe so the sacrifice of Christ “communicates God’s hatred of sin and motivates persons to repent of sins and reform their lives.” It was argued by subsequent Arminians who accepted this theory that the “satisfaction theory” was wrong because they believe that “sin and guilt cannot be transferred – particularly to God’s Son who had no personal demerit – and that divine justice need not punish sin”. So what did the cross accomplish according to them? Like in the “Moral Influence” theory, Christ’s sufferings “manifest the ugliness of sin” and “deter future sins by striking fear in human hearts.” This theory has been espoused by Methodist, Wesleyan and Nazarene theologians. One of the latter argued that the cross was about the suffering of Jesus rather than his being punished.
I-5. Universal Reconciliation Theory A fifth view has various forms but the common thread of this is that Christ died for and redeemed the entire world and has won back everybody to the Father already. Karl Barth puts it this way: “In the death of Christ both the destroying and renewing have taken place for all men. . . . Unbelief has become an objective, real and ontological impossibility and faith an objective, real and ontological necessity for all men and for every man.” But in this view, even though everybody is already redeemed and has faith, not everybody is aware of this status. Others in this view state that “the precise connection between the cross and reconciliation is not clear.” As one named Hendrikus Berkhof puts it: “The NT asserts the ‘that,’ but has no answer to the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’ That is God’s secret.”
II. Biblical Atonement – Penal Substitution
In contrast to all of these various views stands the “Penal Substitution” view, which states that Jesus Christ lived a life that perfectly fulfilled the law of God and then in death he personally bore the penalty, or legal punishment, for all our sins against God. In this view we have real guilt before God that must be punished but that Jesus, who did not deserve such punishment, voluntarily took the punishment for what we did wrong and paid our penalty in full. Furthermore, his own righteousness is voluntarily offered in exchange and anyone who believes may take part in this salvation by faith alone. This view is the essence of the gospel, and I don’t even know how someone could read the book of Romans with its well-developed arguments, and not come to this conclusion.
The penal substitution theory is not a new view but is clearly taught in the New Testament (including today’s passage). We read that when Jesus said “It is finished” right before He gave up his life on the cross the gospels use the Greek word tetelestai, which refers to a work that is completely finished with no more to accomplish – or in the financial realm it was a term that meant “paid in full”. Even in the Old Testament the substitutionary death of the Savior is seen as a “scarlet thread” through all of scripture. Blood was shed when God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve (after their attempts to cover their nakedness with garments made with leaves). God gave Abraham a lamb to sacrifice in place of his son Isaac. On the day of Atonement, the high priest would confess the sins of Israel over the head of a live goat (called the scapegoat) that would then be driven away into the wilderness, symbolically bearing away the sins of the people. We have already referred to the very clear prophesy in Isaiah 53 of one who would be crushed by God for the sins of the people to save them.
Certainly this was a prominent view during the reformation when the scriptures became available to and studied by the people in large numbers. The idea that we have actual real guilt before God is given in question 40 of the Heidelberg Catechism which asks “Why did Christ have to go all the way to death? Because God’s justice and truth demand it: only the death of God’s Son could pay for our sin.” But this view was not invented only in the later church ages. It is echoed by many of the church fathers from the first few centuries of the church and persisted in one form or another all through church history. One letter from the 2nd century (epistle to Diognetus) contains the following comment: “God gave up his own Son as a ransom for us – the holy one for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. For what else could cover our sins except his righteousness? … O sweet exchange! O unfathomable work of God! The sinfulness of many is hidden in the Righteous One, while the righteousness of the One justifies the many that are sinners.”
III. What is Propitiation?
To see how it fits in with our passage, let’s go back to the three aspects of the atonement in Romans 3:24-25:
Romans 3:23-25a 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
As we discussed in part 2,
- The blood of Christ propitiated the wrath of God against our sin,
- With that price we were purchased for God (redemption) in Christ Jesus, and
- We were justified (declared righteous) as a gift – totally underserved by us in ourselves
We have discussed redemption and justification in more detail, but it is now time to spend some time on the last term: PROPITIATION. Last time we went over the nature and meaning of the word, but there is one more aspect that we need to understand. It has been said we will never understand the love of God fully until we understand his hatred of sin and evil. It is not a coincidence that Paul starts his talk about the gospel with the announcement of God’s wrath against sin. One preacher summarized the need for the gospel as “We are Bad, God is Mad.” There are two common terms for anger in the New Testament. One describes the immediate feelings of anger in response to a current situation, but the other, which is used in Romans one, is for a more long-term and thoughtful wrath. All have sinned, and all need redemption. Now the idea that God is angry does not sit well with us in general. We all have a pretty high opinion of ourselves, and we think that we are more good than bad. Besides, we all know that Jesus loves us and it is just the mean old church leaders who made up all of that judgment stuff, right? Jesus said not to judge, and didn’t he stop the people from stoning that woman caught in adultery?
But when we look at Jesus we see a different story. Most mentions of hell in scripture were made by Jesus. He is the one who talked about “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. His message started with the word “repent”, which means to turn from sin. He took sin very seriously. In the sermon on the mount he took the technical sins described by the ten commandments and showed how they revealed widespread sin in the heart. In this he revealed the righteousness of God to be an IMPOSSIBLE standard to keep. He worked hard to bring all people to the point where they would realize their need for a Savior. But the good news was that He had come to “seek and to save those who were lost”.
When we understand the attitude God has toward sin, the true meaning of the word “propitiation” becomes clear. The wrath against our sin is infinite – a finite being will require an eternity to pay it off, which is why the book of Revelation says that the punishment of those in the lake of fire goes on “forever and ever”. But the infinite Son of God paid the penalty for our sins, ONCE FOR ALL. He then said IT IS FINISHED. That means that when he died, he had already absorbed the entire wrath of God for our sins. He made PROPITIATION. It is SO important that we understand this concept, because anything else is a perversion of the true gospel. When the scripture says that Jesus made propitiation for us, that means that there is NO WRATH LEFT AT ALL. Not a ton, not a pound, not an ounce, not a microgram. NONE.
That is why the writer of the book of Hebrews says that, unlike the Old Testament priests, Jesus SAT DOWN. He was done, and there was not and will never be anything more to do for our sin. It was the entire package. Our sins, past, present, and future, are permanently paid for, forever! As Paul writes later in Romans:
Romans 5:1-2 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 8:1, 33 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ... 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
If we understand the meaning of propitiation in Romans 3:25 we will understand just how perilous it is to give any ground at all on this doctrine. Consider two facets of the Roman Catholic church as examples: Purgatory and the Mass. The doctrine of Purgatory says that Jesus has paid our way to heaven, but most people (except the really, really good ones) still have some sins that need to be “burned away”. So even if a believer has faith in Christ, only the big stuff is really paid for, and the rest will have to be punished so that we can be purged of the rest of our minor sins. But according to Hebrews, Jesus paid for ALL. He absorbed the entire wrath of God for our sins. If some of God’s wrath remains, did the sacrifice of Christ really propitiate the entire wrath of God? What about the Mass? According to a catechism that I have, the mass “is really the same thing as happened on Mount Calvary long ago, where Jesus died on the cross. It is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, offering Himself for our sins as he once did on the cross. … Through the Mass we can pay all our debts to God.” We must ask a rhetorical question here: Hebrews 9:26 says “for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Jesus was the offering, AND the priest who made the offering. He did it once for ALL and sat down. He said “it is finished”. What is the mass but a declaration that the Bible is wrong, Jesus did not finish his offering, He did not propitiate the wrath of God, and he did not sit down after making one offering for all sins, once. What a slap in the face of the all-sufficient savior. What an abrogation of the responsibility of the church to preach the gospel. What a trampling of the promises of Paul in Romans that nobody can bring any charge against God’s elect!
We must stand firm on the gospel and we must understand what a hope we have. Hebrews 9:26 and Romans 3:25 are the reason that the crosses in protestant churches are EMPTY. The empty cross is a sign that our redemption is complete. God does not do half-way work. He takes us all the way. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:30 “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The whole package.
Conclusion
Back in the 1970’s the Watergate scandal erupted and the entire nation was torn in two as people watched the presidency of Richard Nixon break down. In the end, Nixon resigned from the presidency and several of the people that worked in his administration were convicted of crimes and sent to prison. One of the men sentenced to prison was Chuck Colson, a lawyer who had been given the nickname “Nixon’s hatchet man”. In the breakup of his life, though he had been an unbeliever, he found himself being drawn to Christ. In his autobiographical account (titled “Born Again”) he talks about how his newfound faith developed in the stresses of prison and was tested by many dangers and family problems. While in prison he was informed that his son was arrested for narcotics possession and he was helpless to do anything for his wife and family. Fortunately he had several new Christian friends who supported him. One day they were visiting Chuck in prison, and asked him if there was anything else that they could do for him. He declined, saying “you guys are doing everything possible, and I love you for it. I just don’t know what else you can do.” That was when something amazing happened, which made a huge impact on his spiritual life.
One of his friends was a congressman named Al Quie, who had been in Congress for 20 years, was the sixth ranking Republican there, senior minority member of the Education and Labor Committee, and “one of the most respected public figures in Washington. Al Quie told Chuck Colson something that he never could have anticipated. “There’s an old statute someone told me about. I’m going to ask the President if I can serve the rest of your term for you.” He stammered that he could never accept such a gift, but was told by Mr Quie “I mean it. Your family needs you, and I can’t sleep while you’re in prison. I think I’d be a lot happier being inside myself.”
The next day Colson received a letter from his fellowship group that all of the men had volunteered to serve the rest of his sentence so that he could take care of his family. That night he made a total surrender of the rest of his life to the Lord. He prayed “Lord, if this is what it is all about, then I thank You. I praise You for leaving me in prison, for letting them take away my license to practice law, yes – even for my son being arrested. I praise You for giving me your love through these men, for being God, for just letting me walk with Jesus.”
In the end the men did not get their chance to carry out their plan, because the judge released Colson from prison early because of his family problems. But the similarity to the love of Christ is unmistakable. Colson’s brothers in Christ were willing to take on themselves his well-deserved punishment, though they were not guilty of any crime.
Jesus did the same for us. May our song always be:
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.
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