How Can Another Man's Death Save Me?

 

Excerpt from Letters From a Skeptic by Dr. Gregory Boyd and his father Edward Boyd, page 172-178.

Father Edward Boyd:

But I've got another serious question I need answered, Greg. Throughout our correspondence you have continually said something to the effect of, "Jesus died for your sin." Your message seems to be that Jesus was punished for what I did, and that by believing on Him I can be all right with God. I've heard this before, but have never understood it. I just don't see how this can be. How can one man's death 2,000 years ago pardon me? How can a God of perfect justice punish Jesus for my sins, and then let me off the hook knowing full well that I'm still guilty as hell (literally)? And why would He go through all the trouble? Surely there must have been an easier way.

As always, I look forward to your response. Dad

Son Dr. Gregory Boyd:

But let me move on now to your question about how Christ's death brings about your pardon.

To be perfectly up front with you. Dad, I really don't know how this occurs. The church has never arrived at any definitive theology of how we are made right with God through the work of the cross (what's called "the atonement"). I don't think we should be too surprised at this, however. If we find the fundamental structure of physical reality to be impervious to our reason — science is increasingly arriving at just this conclusion — should we find it surprising if the central act whereby God redeems the world is also clouded in mystery? 1 think not. Nevertheless, there are two things which I'd like to say which might clear up the matter for you somewhat.

First, Dad, it's important to realize that Jesus was not just "a man" whose death 2,000 years ago gets you off the hook. Jesus was not an innocent "third party" that God punished in place of us. Rather, Jesus is Himself God as well as man. He is not only the one judged for the crime; He is the One against whom the crime is committed, and the One who passes out the sentence for the crime. The Judge Himself became the judged! So, there is no "third party" in this transaction. Dad. There are only two parties — the all-holy God and sinful humanity — and the Jesus who died for us is both. This is not injustice, Dad; this is incomprehensible love.

Secondly, without trying to explain exactly how the atonement occurred, or whether it had to happen the way it did, I think we are given enough insight in Scripture to make sense of the fact that it occurred the way it did. We can say why Jesus died for us without going so far as to say that He had to die for us.

Three considerations, I believe, will help us make sense of Jesus' death for us. First, God is an all-holy God. Sin is thus fundamentally incompatible with Him. It is contrary to His nature, like arsenic is to ours. 

What is more, since God is perfect. He must be self-consistent. If God were ever inconsistent with His own character, He could only be so in the direction of imperfection. Thus, God is perfectly opposed to sin, and is perfectly consistent and unqualified in this opposition. But secondly, holiness isn't God's only attribute; God is also perfectly loving. "God is love" the Bible says. He created creatures other than Himself out of this love, and He has continued to be passionately in love with us even though we have universally fallen into sin. In spite of our sin, God wants us to live eternally with Him.

This raises a dire problem, however, and this is my third consideration. The problem is, how can created beings who are hopelessly sinful be rendered compatible with an all-holy God who is necessarily opposed to all sin? I would argue that two things need to happen.

1. Our sin must be "atoned for." It cannot simply be overlooked. (Our inclination to sometimes overlook sin is due to our imperfect moral character, yet even we usually feel wronged when serious crimes go unpunished. Justice must be served!)

2. We must be changed into beings who are compatible with God, and who, therefore, are perfect. If either of these things is left undone, our eternal lives must be spent as arsenic in God's stomach!

So, the million-dollar question becomes, how are these two things going to occur? The biblical teaching is that they could never occur on humanity's own effort. Our situation in sin is far too severe for this. Left to ourselves we do not even want to "pay" for our own sins, and even if we did want to, we'd have to die (eternally) to do it! What is more, our situation in sin is such that we don't on our own want to change ourselves, and even if we did want to change ourselves, we couldn't do it. Our enslavement to sin prevents us from desiring, and certainly from achieving, perfection in holiness.

So, if the two things are going to be accomplished, they must he accomplished by God Himself not us. And this. Dad, is exactly what the Bible says happened in the life and death of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God's love absorbed His own justice. Out of love for humanity, God Himself satisfied His own moral standard by absorbing within Himself the sin of humanity and the punishment which that sin deserved. As a man, God "became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:19). In Jesus, humanity pays for its sin, and God justly judges that sin, for Jesus is both God and man. Hence sin is atoned for and is no longer an issue between God and man. Christ thus accomplishes the first necessary condition in making us eternally compatible with God.

Christ also accomplishes the second necessary condition for humanity to be compatible with God as well — we are eternally changed! The Bible says that when a person accepts what God has done for him in Christ, God gives him His own perfect righteousness, the only kind of righteousness which is compatible with God. In the Book of Romans, Paul says, "To the man who does not work (try to earn God's love by his behaviour) but who simply trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness" (4:5). When you trust in Christ as your only hope of salvation. Dad, God not only forgives you all past, present, and future sin (condition 1), but He also gives you His own perfect righteousness (condition 2). And He can consistently do the latter because He has done the former. You are given a new god-like nature. "We are new creatures in Christ Jesus," the Bible says. "Old things have passed away, behold all things are new" (2 Cor. 5:17).

This does not, obviously, mean that people are perfect from the moment they give their lives to the Lord. A believer is given a "new self," a self-identified with the righteousness of God. But he yet lives under a habitual addiction to the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours of "the old-self," the self which is identified with everything other than God. Believers are thus given a new nature which is what they truly are, but they yet live, in varying degrees, in contradiction to this new nature. Only in heaven will the gift of God's eternal righteousness shine forth from us perfectly. Only then will the ''old self he shown to be the lie that it is. Our time on earth after our conversion is simply a slow progression toward this end.

Now a lot more could he said about the work of Christ if I had the time to go into it. While making us compatible with the Father was, I think, a central motive behind the work of the Cross, there are other motives as well. Scripture, for example, makes it clear that Jesus' death on the cross somehow dealt a death blow to Satan and his demonic forces which have had the world under siege since our fall. (See Col. 2:13-15, and Heb. 2:14-15.)

It is also clear that Jesus came to instruct us, to make God visible to us, to give us a perfect human example to aspire toward, as well as to accomplish several other things. It seems to fit the wisdom of God to kill a number of flies with one swat. But we can't go into these other motives now. Well, I hope what I have said has been helpful. Dad. Let me add one final word. The work of Christ is like a billion-dollar bank account which God has individually laid aside for all His children to freely inherit. And He wants everyone to be one of His children. But it all just sits there, utterly worthless, until you personally claim your birth-right.

Dad. You must accept this inheritance. God's beautiful plan of salvation comes to nothing if a person doesn't accept it as his own. But when one inherits it, one inherits the whole thing! Though you are a sinner, you instantly stand before the Father with the righteousness of Jesus Christ when you believe. Not one spot does He find on you! "As far as the east is from the west," the Bible says, "so far has God removed our transgressions from us" (Ps. 103:12). You can face your Creator, who is also your Saviour, with joy, not fear.

My prayer for you. Dad, is that understanding will turn to action, and you will take all of this to be true for you. Inherit the kingdom!