The Great Exchange (Foreword by Sinclair Ferguson) E-Book

Jerry Bridges

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 471

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Believers often take for granted the great act of salvation provided to us by the work of Jesus Christ. Beginning with the Old Testament sacrifices and the prophecies that foreshadowed Christ, authors Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington guide believers through the biblical overview of Christ's atonement. The Great Exchange helps believers see how the Old Testament practices tie in with the New Testament discussion of Christ's great work of salvation. As believers work through these principles, they will begin to recognize that even though we deserve condemnation and punishment from a holy God, he has given us the opportunity to experience his great riches through his Son, Jesus Christ. The clear gospel message presented throughout the entire book offers a great appreciation of Christ for believers and an opportunity for salvation for unbelievers.

Leseprobe

The Great Exchange

My Sin for His Righteousness

An Exposition of the Atonement of Jesus Christ Patterned after The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement by George Smeaton

Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington

The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness

Copyright © 2007 by Jerry Bridges and Robert C. Bevington

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers 1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh DennisFirst printing 2007Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,® copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible.® Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bridges, Jerry.

The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness / Jerry Bridges and Robert C. Bevington.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Atonement—Biblical teaching. 2. Bible. N.T.—Theology. I. Bevington, Bob, 1956- II. Title.

BS2545.A8B75 2007

232’.3—dc22

2007002653

The Cross—where the God-man, Jesus Christ, traded places with the sinners he redeemed, exchanging his perfect righteousness for their sin, condemnation, and death.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

—2 Corinthians 5:21

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Part One: Christ’s Atonement: Overview and Context

1. The Unique Qualifications of the Apostles

2. Christ’s Atonement: The Apostles’ Summary

3. Atonement Foreshadowed: The Old Testament Sacrifices

4. Atonement Expected: The Old Testament Prophecies

Part Two: The Apostle-authored Scripture on Christ’s Atonement

5. The Acts of the Apostles

6. The Epistles of Paul on “the Righteousness of God”

7. Romans

8. 1 Corinthians

9. 2 Corinthians

10. Galatians

11. Ephesians

12. Philippians

13. Colossians

14. 1 and 2 Thessalonians

15. 1 and 2 Timothy

16. Titus

17. Hebrews

18. 1 Peter

19. 1 John

20. Revelation

Conclusion

Appendix: An Outline of the Doctrine of the Atonement

Notes

Foreword

It is a great privilege and pleasure to have the opportunity to introduce and commend this important book. It is written by two authors who have something of the spirit of the men of Issachar in Old Testament days, who “had understanding of the times, to know what . . . to do” (1 Chron. 12:32), for The Great Exchange addresses one of the greatest weaknesses of the contemporary evangelical church—a failure to be centered on the center of the gospel.

Perhaps a little history will help clarify what I mean.

Sometime on October 31, 1517, in Wittenberg, Germany, a thirty-three- year-old monk of the Augustinian Order took a small mallet from his cassock, found a nail, and hammered into place some sheets of paper on which he had written, in as legible Latin as he could write, almost one hundred statements about the Christian gospel. It was his way of provoking discussion on topics he was prepared to discuss and, if need be, to debate in public. He could have had no expectation that these sheets of paper would almost overnight shake sixteenth-century Europe to its foundations and impact the structures of Western society for centuries to come. But he himself was in the process of discovering the power of the gospel to save and transform people’s lives, and he understood that at the heart of the gospel message stood the cross.

The monk’s name was, of course, Martin Luther. The sheets of paper he posted came to be known publicly as the Ninety-five Theses. Among the last of them were these two statements:

Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace! (Thesis 92) Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Cross, cross,” and there is no cross! (Thesis 93)

Luther meant that any gospel that does not focus on the death of Christ and its true significance, and any teaching on Christianity that does not emphasize a life of cross bearing cannot be the biblical gospel nor produce a Christ-honoring life. But when the cross is preached, and when a cross-centered life is lived, true joy and peace are known. At the heart of this gospel, Luther believed, lies the great and wonderful exchange that Christ has made for us on the cross. There Christ exchanged his righteousness for our sin, so that through faith we might exchange our sin for his righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). Luther understood what Paul meant when he said that of first importance in the message of the gospel is this: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). Ever since, evangelical Christians—gospel people—have believed, taught, preached, lived, died—and, yes, written books—in this conviction.

The world into which Luther spoke was in many ways different from ours. We have come far since then in science, in technology, in medicine, and a in thousand other things. But in the Western world at least, in one sphere we are in danger—perhaps surprisingly—of readopting patterns of life that bear an uncanny resemblance to those which Luther addressed. That sphere is to be found in the Christian church.

How so? The church of the Middle Ages was marked by several obvious characteristics. There was a strong emphasis on influence and power. One index of this was the way in which church leaders sought—and gained—social and political leverage and enjoyed having a voice at the table of the affairs of this world. Another was the rise of what we call “megachurches” (which they called “cathedrals”). Here well-known and influential pastors (whom they called “bishops”) exercised great influence in their society. The model to which young ministers were encouraged to aspire was not faithfulness to the gospel, but success. In these churches the “quality of worship” was thought to be outstanding (stunning acoustics, magnificent musical performance beyond the ordinary). It was also a world where the image dominated the Word, where people—so it was thought—would not listen to preaching, and so drama became the order of the day, whether in the colorful liturgy of the services or in the famed medieval mystery plays. And, to some degree, if one wanted health, wealth, and (especially eternal) happiness, these, too, the church could provide, for it had men who possessed charismatic gifts. Indeed, from the extraordinary power in their hands one could receive forgiveness, and from them, or at least from objects they possessed, one could seek even physical healing.

But something was sadly absent from all this, as Luther, who was once part of the whole system well knew. The true message of the cross was lacking, and its true meaning obscured. Of course, the church would have argued that it was there—after all, even the buildings were shaped in the form of a cross, not to mention the crosses that were worn or carried by its ministers. But the cross was not the message that was being preached; the way of the cross—a cross-centered and cross-driven life—was not seen as the very epicenter of Christianity.

It is difficult to avoid seeing some unnerving parallels to the evangelical church in our own society: megachurches, desire for political influence, ministers as gurus, charismatic gift-givers, an emphasis on worship as performance, drama as necessary for a nonverbal culture, and one other thing—a relative silence about the cross and its true meaning.

A moment’s reflection is likely to confirm that this is true. What have been the themes of the seminars, conferences, books, sermons, classes, DVDs, CDs, and songs that we have attended, heard, seen, read, and talked about recently? How many—what percentage of them—have been cross-centered? Of the titles of Christian books you have read, or of which you know, how many highlight the cross?

The answer to that question should probably alarm us.

More than thirty years ago in his landmark book Knowing God, J. I. Packer noted, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.”1I would add today: “If you want to judge how well a person understands the gospel, ask him what he makes of the death of Christ, and what the message of the cross is.” The real Christian answers that while the message of the cross is foolishness to some and a stumbling block to others, to Christians it is the saving wisdom and power of God (1 Cor. 1:18–24). The confession of the real Christian is, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

We need to understand that the cross stands at the center and heart of the gospel. Without it there is no gospel. That is why the message of this book is potentially so important for us and for our Christian living, and for the shape, style, and ethos of our church life. It is a book about what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. It takes us to the heart of the gospel.

I noted that this book has two authors. Perhaps it would be better to say that it is a book with two builders and one architect. For behind it, as a kind of architectural design, lies the work of a wonderful, but now-little-known, nineteenth-century Scottish author and theologian, George Smeaton. In 1868 and 1870 he published two magnificent volumes, totaling almost one thousand pages, in which he carefully expounded all of the New Testament passages on the atonement. They bore the titles Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement and The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement.2

Smeaton was an outstanding scholar with a brilliant mind and a deep love for Christ. My own conviction is that these two great volumes should regularly be in the hands of every person who teaches and preaches the gospel of Christ. They are treasure troves. But they are also lengthy. Now, out of a shared deep appreciation for the good that Smeaton’s exposition has done for them personally, Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington have taken the architectural design he employed for the second of these volumes, The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement, and have built their exposition of the gospel from the same biblical materials Smeaton first used.

The Great Exchange is the wonderful result. It meets the standard set by Lord Bacon’s famous essay “Of Studies”: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Here is spiritual food to be chewed and digested. It will do you good. And it may well make you sing,

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place, condemned he stood;Sealed my pardon with his blood:Hallelujah! What a Savior!3

I, for one, hope it does.

Sinclair B. Ferguson First Presbyterian Church Columbia, South Carolina

Preface

This book is first and foremost about the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ is the sinless sin bearer of all who are united to him by faith. But this raises two questions: (1) What does it mean that Jesus is our sinless sin bearer? And (2) What does it mean to become united to him by faith? Our purpose in this book is to answer these all-important questions by unpacking the key verse of our book—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21)—within the context of the rest of Scripture.

The Great Exchange, in which God caused our sin to be traded for Christ’s righteousness, is crystallized and summed up in 2 Corinthians 5:21. The Great Exchange and the related expression substitutionary atonement represent the banners under which we will examine many passages of Scripture. These two banners will lead us deep into the historical gospel as the sole source and substance of the Christian faith.

Why write a book on this subject? Why now? The gospel is a timeless message and therefore extremely relevant for our day and age. But it is not only relevant; it is essential, because it is the only solution ever offered by God for the perpetual sin dilemma of mankind. Throughout history, the message of the Bible has not changed. The original languages are still the original languages, and the ancient manuscripts still declare this same message.

Yet, in recent times it has become apparent that some in the church have drifted away from the historical gospel and ventured to redefine sin and redemption and even the meaning of the cross. Some have done this in a sincere attempt to make the gospel message more acceptable to today’s culture. Others have attempted to usher in an age of greater authenticity and depth of commitment. But regardless of sincerity, no attempt to reform the church can succeed if it departs in any way from the centrality of the message that our sinless Christ actually died on a real cross as the sin bearer for those who are united to Christ by faith in his substitutionary sacrifice and righteousness.

The message of the cross—the historical gospel of the God-man, Jesus Christ, who personally visited the earth, which was created through him, with the mission of redeeming his own people with his own infinitely precious, bloody, substitutionary death—has been and must remain the solitary basis and the singular foundation of the Christian faith and worldview.

This gospel—that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures—is rooted in pre-creation, revealed in ancient prophecy, and fulfilled in real, time-space, dimensional history. It is a message that is alive, and it is the only message that imparts life. It is a message that simply will not budge in order to morph into the paradigms of seekers or culture. It consists of its own unchangeable paradigm. Yes, it is absolutist; if there is one thing in the universe that deserves to be, it is the gospel. Its immutability is woven into the fabric of authentic Christianity.

We do recognize, however, that the gospel is like an infinitely precious diamond in which there are multiple facets reflecting and refracting the brilliance of the message in various ways. But all facets of the gospel are necessarily connected to the substance of the gospel—the message of substitutionary atonement. The substance of the gospel and all its facets emanate from and draw attention to the cross, the site of the Great Exchange, where the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is seen by redeemed sinners in the face of Christ crucified (2 Cor. 4:6; 1 Cor. 2:2). The facets, while never ceasing to be connected to the substance, supply wonderful truths that help us more fully apply the meaning of Christ’s great atonement. Here are a few:

1) In the gospel, our worldview is radically changed. We refer to this facet as the gospel of the kingdom. It means that our definitions of health, wealth, security, comfort, and prosperity are turned upside down compared to the world’s view. It means we embrace the paradoxes of Christ’s teachings—to live is to die, to be great is to be a servant of all, and to be rich is to give sacrificially. All our values change, as do our views on community, poverty, gender, racism, orphans and widows, and the sick and the weak. But none of this can happen authentically apart from the cross, where our sin was exchanged for his righteousness.

2) In the gospel, Jesus provides us with the perfect example of how to live. When we need insight and direction, we can ask, “What would Jesus do?” We search the Scriptures to see how he handled situations. We look for the attitudes he conveyed and the way he communicated. But all of his doing and saying was connected to his mission in which he set his face like a flint to provide a perfect, sinless sacrifice. And were it not for the fact that his mission was successfully completed at the cross, we would never have the ability to apply the example of Jesus to our lives.

3) In the gospel, Satan was dethroned, and we were set free from his dominion. Sin and Satan and death no longer reign over us. We are free for the process of renewal, to be transformed into the image of the Son. But our freedom is not a standalone feature of the gospel; it is linked to the cross, where we are united into Christ in his obedient life, death to sin, and glorious resurrection. And the outward evidence of our transformation should primarily serve to deflect the eyes of observers to the cross that made our freedom possible.

4) In the gospel, we are provided with the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to grow, to be transformed, and to preach and serve. The Holy Spirit provides gifts of inward and outward fruit bearing. The gospel would not be complete without the role of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not the complete gospel. The Holy Spirit came because Christ died for our sins as our substitute.

So we conclude that our goal is to declare the whole counsel of God in the gospel and to show how every aspect can be traced back to its substance in the substitutionary atonement. Our book is not about us; it is not our story. We aim to disappear now and display Christ and him crucified as the treasure of all time. We pray that you, too, will become self-forgetful as you turn these pages, because what you see here is God in Christ doing something that is truly larger than life, namely, providing an all-sufficient substitutionary atonement for us by his perfect, obedient life in the flesh and his perfect sacrificial death in the flesh. Herein you will find the meaning of the Great Exchange, the monumental reality that in the gospel: “For our sake [God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

This book is patterned after a nineteenth-century classic, The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement,1written by Scottish theologian George Smeaton. While our book is neither an abridgment nor a modernization, it is nevertheless designed to make the brilliance and depth of Smeaton’s work accessible to mainstream readers while faithfully and accurately representing the intent of his original exposition. We acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of others in addition to George Smeaton. We especially acknowledge our indebtedness to John Piper. Readers of Dr. Piper will recognize some of his well-known expressions and concepts in our text.

We also want to thank Greg Plitt for his invaluable assistance with the earlier drafts of the manuscript. Thanks also to Allan Fisher, senior vice president of book publishing at Crossway, and to Lydia Brownback for her outstanding editorial work. And also thanks to the number of friends who read portions of the original draft for their encouragement and suggestions. Finally, we invite you to visit www.thegreatexchangebook.com, where you will find a free study guide and other tools for deepening your personal or your group’s appreciation of the wondrous cross.

Introduction

When the apostle Paul wanted to remind the Corinthian church of the gospel, he wrote, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).

Christ died for our sins. The gospel is the solution to our sin problem. So, before we can understand and appreciate the gospel, we need to understand the doctrine of sin. The basis for this understanding takes us back to the garden of Eden, where, from the moment Adam ate of the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:6), sin became humanity’s overarching problem. Adam, by God’s appointment, stood as the representative of the entire human race so that his guilt became our guilt, and his resulting sinful nature was passed on to all of us. Paul speaks of this representative nature of Adam’s sin and its consequences when he states:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. . . . Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom. 5:12, 18–19)

Thus, we were born sinners. In fact, David wrote that we were sinners even from the time of conception in our mother’s womb (Ps. 51:5). And because we were born sinners, committing our own personal sins serves to compound our condition on a daily basis.

What is sin? It is often described as “missing the mark”—that is, failure to live up to the rigorous standard of God’s holy law. But the Bible makes it clear that it is much more than that. In Leviticus 16:21, sin is described as transgression; literally, as rebellion against authority. In the prophet Nathan’s confrontation of David over his sins of adultery and murder, Nathan describes sin as a despising of both God’s Word and God himself (2 Sam. 12:9–10). And in Numbers 15:30–31, Moses characterizes sinners as acting “with a high hand,” meaning defiantly. Therefore, we can conclude that sin is a rebellion against God’s sovereign authority, a despising of his Word and his person, and even a defiance of God himself. It is no wonder Paul wrote that because of our sin, we were by nature objects of God’s wrath (Eph. 2:3).

We would like to think that, as believers, such descriptions of sin no longer apply to us. We look at the gross and obvious sins of society around us, and we tend to define sin in terms of those actions. We fail to see that our anxiety, our discontentment, our ingratitude toward God, our pride and selfishness, our critical and judgmental attitudes toward others, our gossip, our unkind words to or about others, our preoccupation with the things of this life, and a whole host of other subtle sins are an expression of rebellion against God and a despising of his Word and person.

The truth is that even the most mature believers continue to sin in thought, word, deed, and especially in motive. We continually experience the inward spiritual guerilla warfare Paul describes when he states, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17). That is why it was necessary for the apostle Peter to exhort us to “abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:11).

This, then, is the doctrine of sin. Because of Adam’s sin as representative of the entire human race, we are born with a sinful nature and as objects of God’s wrath. We then aggravate our condition before God with our personal sins, whether they be the gross, obvious sins, or the subtle sins we too often tolerate in ourselves and in our Christian circles. And it is in view of this truth of the doctrine of sin that we should understand Paul’s words, “Christ died for our sins.” It is with this understanding of the nature and reality of sin that we should understand the words of the angel to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Christ died for our sins. This phrase suggests two ideas—substitution and sacrifice. Christ died in our place as our substitute and representative. Just as God appointed Adam to act as representative of all humanity, so he appointed Jesus Christ to act on behalf of all who trust in him. There is no better Scripture to see the idea of substitution than this one:

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.But he was wounded for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peaceand with his stripes we are healed.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. (Isa. 53:4–6)

Note the repeated contrast which the Spirit-inspired prophet draws between the words he and our, or him and us. Surely any unbiased reader cannot fail to see in the passage the idea that Jesus suffered as our substitute, bearing the punishment for sin that we deserve.

The second idea, sacrifice, is foreshadowed in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament era, especially in the sacrifices required on the annual Day of Atonement as described in Leviticus 16. On that day, the high priest would cast lots over two goats, one of which was to be killed, its blood carried into the Holy Place to be sprinkled over and in front of the mercy seat, thus symbolizing the propitiation of the wrath of God.

After performing this ritual, the high priest would emerge from the holy place and place his hands on the live goat and confess over it all the sins of the people, symbolically putting those sins on the head of the goat. Then the goat would be led away into the wilderness, signifying the removal of the people’s sins from the presence of both God and the people. The result of Christ’s death was foreshadowed by both goats. The sprinkled blood of the first goat pictured the death of Christ as propitiating or exhausting the cup of the wrath of God toward us because of our sin (Matt. 26:39; John 18:11). The sending away of the second goat pictured the result of Christ’s death in removing our sins from us. As Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

Psalm 103:12, as well as other Old Testament word pictures such as “blotting out our transgressions” and “remembering sins no more” (Isa. 43:25) and casting “all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:19) speak of the forgiveness of our sins. This message of forgiveness of sin through the death of Christ was central to apostolic preaching. See, for example, Acts 2:38; 10:43; and 13:38, as well as Paul’s words in Romans 4:7–8; Ephesians 1:7; and Colossians 2:13. And as the writer of Hebrews wrote, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). (In fact, for those who want to pursue further the nature and purpose of Christ’s sacrifice, Hebrews 9 is a good place to start).

But forgiveness of our sins is not the ultimate purpose of Christ’s death. As Paul says in Titus 2:14, “[Jesus Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” It was never God’s intent that Jesus should die to pay the penalty for our sins so that we might continue to live in them. He died so that all who believe in him might become new creations (2 Cor. 5:17). But that could not occur until after the sin that separated us from God had been dealt with through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The key word in Leviticus 16 is the word atonement. Animals were sacrificed to make atonement for sins. This, of course, was only a picture of the one great sacrifice of atonement that Christ would make, once for all time, to put away the sin of all who would ever trust in him. Atonement is defined as: “The satisfactory compensation made for an offense or injury, in which a price is paid on behalf of the offending party, resulting in their discharge from the obligation to pay the due penalty.” Atonement allows for restoration of the previously disrupted relationship. Simply stated, atonement is the price paid to reconcile enemies.

In the biblical context, we have the following:

The offended party is God—the holy and omnipotent sovereign.

The offense is sin of any kind, as defined by the Bible.

The offending party consists of sinners, that is, all humanity.

The penalty is the full force of God’s inconceivable eternal wrath.

The price paid on behalf of sinners is the atoning death of Christ.

Because Christ made atonement for our sins by suffering in our place as our substitute, we speak of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. A similar expression used to sum up the work of Christ is penal substitution, meaning that as our substitute, Christ paid the penalty for our sins. These two terms have, to some degree, fallen out of fashion in today’s evangelical world. But they are basic to our understanding of the gospel and so need to be restated and reaffirmed for twenty-first century readers. That is what we are seeking to do in this book.

Although atonement rarely appears as a stand-alone word in the New Testament, the concept of Christ’s atonement and its application comprise the primary themes of the entire Bible—Old and New Testament alike. The passages included in this study contain synonyms of the word atonement or concepts related to atonement, such as: the death of Christ, the blood of Christ, the cross, sacrifice, ransom, propitiation, redemption, mediator, and reconciliation.

There are two features of Smeaton’s book The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement that make it relevant and important to us today. First, he examines and expounds every passage of Scripture from Acts through Revelation that deals with the atonement. Because of Smeaton’s design to address every passage dealing with the subject, the book is redundant in a wonderfully effectual manner—the reader keeps getting the same message from slightly different perspectives so as to enhance, embellish, and deepen his or her understanding of the gospel. And with that comes passion for the person of Christ and gratitude for his finished work on the cross.

Second, Smeaton provides excellent description and emphasis on the believer’s union with Christ as the basis for our ability to enjoy the benefits of Christ’s atoning work. Today, for example, some people ask how it can be just for God to punish an innocent man, Jesus, for the sins of other people. The answer, which is clearly taught in Scripture, is found in the believer’s legal union with Christ; that is, because Christ was our representative in his life and death, it was just of God to punish him for our sins. As the prophet Isaiah said, “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

Before Christ died for our sins, however, he lived a perfectly obedient life. He fully obeyed the moral will of God every second of his life. And just as our sins were charged to him so that he justly paid their penalty, so Christ’s perfect obedience, which culminated in his obedience unto death on the cross, is credited to all who trust in him—once again because of our legal union with him. And it is Smeaton’s grasp of this truth and his continual emphasis of it that makes his book so exciting. For example, he writes in this vein: “When Christ lived a perfect life, we believers lived a perfect life. And when Christ died on the cross, we believers died on the cross.” In other words, Christ didn’t just live and die for us. Rather, we are so united to him by faith that God sees his perfect life as our life and his death as our death.

It is often said that the life of Jesus is to be imitated by his followers. This, of course, is the idea behind the popular question “What would Jesus do?” That we are to follow the example of Christ is indeed taught in the Scriptures (for example, see John 13:13–15 and 1 Pet. 2:21). The reality, though, is that our very best efforts at following his example are always imperfect and defiled by our sinful nature. By contrast, his obedience was always perfect and complete and never defiled. Therefore, we should always look first at what Jesus did as our representative before looking at him as our example. All our efforts toward spiritual growth should flow out of the realization of what he has already done to secure for us our perfect standing before God.

George Smeaton also authored a companion volume to The Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement entitled Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement,1which examines similar Bible texts in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and in which Christ personally explains the scope, nature, and outcome of his upcoming death on behalf of sinners. Smeaton examines how Jesus explains his death and resurrection as the guarantee that God indeed forgives those sinners who trust in his substitutionary death for the resolution of their personal sin dilemma. In these gospel accounts, Jesus offered insight into the divine view of the cross.

Whereas Christ spoke of his upcoming suffering and death for sin, the apostles offered the completed view of Christ’s work of atonement since they spoke and wrote of it after the fact. The apostles refer to it as an eternally valid, historical, and central fact bursting with blood-bought blessings that abide now and forever. In their inspired works, they explore Old Testament Scriptures and relate them to the life and death of Christ to explain how his great atonement covers, colors, and shapes the lives of those who receive it and are thereby saved by it. In this book, we will focus on the apostles’ view of the atonement.

This book, then, is about Christ’s glorious work of atonement culminating at the cross. There are no stories inserted to illustrate points. There are no anecdotes added to entertain the reader. None of this is needed, because a rightly understood view of the cross as the treasure of all time can never be boring, trivial, or lacking in excitement. Our goal is to assist the reader in exulting in the unfathomable riches of Christ’s atonement as contained in God’s Word.

This book is for every Christian, regardless of one’s level of spiritual maturity. Many believers view the gospel only as a message to be shared with unbelievers but not personally applicable to themselves anymore. We have learned from personal experience, as well as from the writings of some of the great writers of previous centuries, that we need the gospel as well. We need it to remind ourselves that our day-to-day standing with God is based on Christ’s righteousness, not our performance. We need the gospel to motivate us to strive in our daily experience to be what we are in our standing before God. We need it to produce joy in our lives when we encounter the inevitable trials of living in a fallen and sin-cursed world.

It is our prayer, then, that God will be pleased to use this book to help many believers think afresh and more deeply of the gospel so that they may rejoice in the good news of the gospel of Christ’s great atonement, and that, above all, Christ may be glorified.

Part One:CHRIST’S ATONEMENT: OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT

CHAPTER 1:The Unique Qualifications of the Apostles

The word apostle means “representative,” in the sense of one who is sent with the full authority of the sender. After Christ accomplished the great atonement on the cross, a radical transformation took place in the lives of the apostles. Prior to the resurrection, John and Peter shunned the idea of Christ’s death whereas Paul looked on and applauded it (Acts 8:1). But once the eyes of these men were opened by Christ himself to the fact and meaning of the completed transaction and its saving effect, they were truly ready to live, suffer, and die for the message of the atonement, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But still, why should we listen to them?

We should listen because, made apostles by God, these men were uniquely qualified as divinely appointed messengers of the atonement in three ways: first, as eyewitnesses of the atoning events and personal instruction in the Scriptures given by the risen Lord; second, in their supernatural empowerment by the Holy Spirit; and third, in their unique and personal commissioning by the Lord himself. For these reasons, the testimony of the apostles is of supreme value and worthy of our careful time and attention.

The Apostles: Eyewitnesses

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1–3)

The apostles were eyewitnesses to Jesus alive, then dead, then alive again. As they followed Christ for three years on earth, they often heard his teaching on the atonement; it foreshadowed the sacrifice that was to come, but at the time they understood little of this message. After the resurrection of Christ, however, they saw prophesied atonement become fulfilled atonement; they saw promise become fact, anticipation become reality, and Old Testament give birth to New Testament. Where they had previously “regarded Christ according to the flesh” (2 Cor. 5:16), after the resurrection they gained a revolutionary new understanding of who Christ is and the purpose of his atoning work, based on their direct experience with him.

The lips of the resurrected Christ imparted fresh oral instruction to the apostles, uniquely equipping them for their mission. Christ took pains to explain everything necessary for them to possess the most accurate knowledge of the atonement—especially by revealing how the Old Testament Scriptures described and pointed to himself and to his atoning work. This is clearly seen in this important passage at the end of the Gospel of Luke:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24:44–48)

Notice the extent of Jesus’ exposition: “The Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.” Jesus supplied the apostles with the keys for understanding his atoning death from three major divisions of Old Testament Scripture. The Law of Moses calls to mind the animal sacrifices for sin and the institution of priests—both symbolic of Christ’s atoning role as sacrifice and priest. The Prophets, from Isaiah through Malachi, contain hundreds of prophecies of the coming Messiah, which were fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Psalms recall the phrases Christ uttered as the suffering Messiah. The direct interpretation of these passages by the risen Christ formed the basis and authority for the apostles’ interpretation. It provided the foundation for all that the apostles subsequently taught and wrote.

With regard to the apostle Paul, even though Jesus did not personally instruct him prior to the cross as he had done with the other apostles, Paul nevertheless learned the gospel directly from the risen Christ. We can see this clearly in Galatians 1:12, where he states, “For I did not receive it [instruction] from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Furthermore, Paul’s personal encounter with the resurrected Lord on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3–9) and his experience of being “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:1–13) constitute firsthand experiences that qualify him to be counted among the apostolic eyewitnesses.

The Apostles: Supernaturally Empowered by the Holy Spirit

Prior to his death, Jesus promised to send the great “remembrancer,” the Holy Spirit, to give the apostles special empowerment to enable them to accurately recall all the Lord did and taught. This is evident in John 14:26, where Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” The Gospel of John quotes Jesus a few chapters later declaring, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13a).

After his resurrection Jesus again assured the apostles that this promise of divine power would be fulfilled, saying “Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The Holy Spirit, with his infinite power capable of flawlessly evoking the past from the cache of human memory, resuscitated all the words and deeds of Jesus necessary to display his person and explain his atoning work. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit exerted supernatural influence on the human authors of the Bible so that they composed and recorded God’s message to mankind without error. He fixed the words in the apostles’ minds, mouths, and pens with precision and clarity for our benefit (2 Pet. 1:21). Therefore, we are not listening to the words of mere men, but to the words of God. It would behoove us to listen.

Uniquely and Personally Commissioned by Christ

Not only were the apostles eyewitnesses to the resurrection and later supernaturally empowered by the Holy Spirit, but they also were personally sanctioned by Jesus, who had said, “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me” (Matt. 10:40). Clearly, the importance and authority of the apostles’ writings as canonized in New Testament Scripture cannot be overstated. All they declared and wrote is divine revelation and no less true than if it had been personally spoken by Christ himself. To disregard apostolic writing is unthinkable and unwise, since Jesus personally and emphatically commissioned them.

Following the completion of the redemptive work of Christ, the apostles, in their teaching, preaching, and writing, put the great atonement in its proper place as the central article of Christianity. They proclaimed the work of the atonement finished for all time, never to require repetition (Heb. 7:27). It was left to the apostles, under the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret, apply, and further develop Christ’s teaching on all points, including the great doctrine of the atonement. Their role extended to defending the doctrine against the heresies that arose in many of the early churches, as well as those appearing right up to the present day.

Some have argued that in order to restore Christianity to its original simplicity, one should abide exclusively by the “red letter” words of Jesus. Others maintain that the apostles altered the truth of Christ’s message. The church must be vigilant to mark and oppose such false teachings, because to disregard the apostles is, without a doubt, to disregard not only them, but also the one who chose, taught, commissioned, and sanctioned them. As Jesus said, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).

Thus, direct experience with Jesus combined with the supernatural empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the apostles’ personal commissioning by Christ provide a threefold assurance of a full conformity between the teaching of Christ and the God-breathed writings of the apostles. The writings of the apostles can therefore be trusted as infallible and inerrant witnesses to the truth of Christ’s great atonement; they should be regarded as equal in reliability and importance to the teachings of Christ.

CHAPTER 2:Christ’s Atonement:The Apostles’ Summary

Coming face-to-face with the resurrected Christ in the aftermath of the crucifixion, the apostles finally and clearly understood Jesus to be God incarnate, that is, God in the flesh. Jesus no doubt intended to impact these men with this truth when he declared to Thomas, “‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:27–28).

This new understanding—Jesus is God—filled the apostles with wonder and delight. It became one of the foundations for their testimony to the atoning work of Christ. Later in their inspired writings where they describe the Lord’s work of redemption, the apostles always directly or implicitly ascribe to him a divine nature. For example, they speak of the Jews killing the Author of life (Acts 3:15) and of them crucifying the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). The writer of the book of Hebrews describes the Son who made purification for sins as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” and showed that “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

The deity of Christ in his atoning work is of paramount importance in understanding the gospel. In order for Jesus Christ to qualify as the atonement for the sins of the redeemed, he must be personally perfect—that is, holy, having lived a sinless life. In order to be perfect, Christ must be more than a mere man—he must be divine. God’s chosen mediator, Jesus Christ, is himself fully God (John 1:1, 18) and thus uniquely qualified to complete the work of redemption.

However, because man sinned, man must bear the penalty of sin, so in addition to being fully God, the mediator must also be fully man in order to bear the sin of man as their representative. Also, the mediator must be a man since the mediating act of atoning for sin requires a sacrificial death (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22), and it is impossible for God to die. The apostles affirm that the eternal Son of God, who exists outside of the realm of time and who created the universe (Heb. 1:2b; John 1:1–3), allowed, accepted, and welcomed an infinite reduction in stature in order to become the incarnate Son of Man. Perhaps this can be seen most clearly where Paul states:

[Jesus Christ] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.(Phil. 2:6–8)

Furthermore, the apostles explicitly assert that the incarnation took place in a single, historic person who became the representative head of the redeemed multitude who find their righteousness, justification, and sanctification in Christ as the Last Adam (Rom. 5:18–19). Paul writes, “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. . . . The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven’” (1 Cor. 15:45, 47). Both the first Adam and the Last Adam were men. But the Last Adam is a man who came from heaven. His incarnation, sinless life, and substitutionary death on the cross were inseparable steps toward accomplishing his unified purpose: conquering death and giving eternal life to those who are united to him by faith.

Jesus Christ is the God-man. He was “born of woman . . . to redeem man” (Gal. 4:4–5). He took on flesh and blood that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14b). He “appeared . . . to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8b). And he “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15b). Much more than merely a sinless man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, embodies the union of the two natures, possessing all-sufficient value and validity. Jesus Christ, the God-man, was, therefore, the perfect sacrifice.

The Legal Aspects of Christ’s Atonement

The apostles placed the death of Christ in a judicial context: God is the supreme judge of his creation, and his judicial actions always reflect his holiness and perfection. God is a God of justice—absolute justice. Therefore, he must by his very nature condemn and punish sin. He never deals with the due penalty of sin by sweeping it under the rug of the universe. With regard to sin, he never lowers the bar or turns a blind eye. If he did, he would become unjust and defiled—something that is unthinkable. In order to remain holy he must hold court, declare sinners guilty, and execute the sentence due, which is eternal condemnation and death for all mankind (Rom. 3:10–18).

But is this God of perfect justice not also a God of perfect love? Aren’t these two attributes of his in conflict? To deal with this judicial dilemma, God devised, initiated, and executed the perfect plan of judicial redemption. It is a plan that required atonement, a judiciously paid penalty. It is a plan that involved the cross:

And you, who were dead in your trespasses . . . God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:13–14)

At the cross, forgiveness was achieved by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. What are these demands? They are the demands that the lawful penalty be actually and fully executed. What is the penalty? The penalty is the punishment that sinners rightly deserve—death. This penalty must be executed by a holy God. Yet, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). While we were still sinners, God nailed the record of our legal debt to the cross of Christ’s death.

Man’s sin was not a mere paper debt. It was not a hypothetical debt. It was an actual legal debt. It was Christ’s own flesh that was nailed to the cross, as he was made sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). Paying our legal debt cost Christ agonizing pain and separation from his Father as he bore the full force of God’s wrath against the offense of sin.

At the cross, Christ extinguished the wrath of God toward believing sinners by his own bloody death, thereby paying the full legal debt due by sinners. The result: with the penalty paid, the justice of God was forever satisfied, and sinners united to Christ have been justly forgiven (declared not guilty), and justified (declared righteous). In God’s plan of redemption, he remains just in forgiving sinners, since a qualified person actually paid the legal penalty required by the law. At the infinite cost of his Son’s life, God constructed the judicial solution in such a way that does not cause God to be defiled or believing sinners to be eternally condemned. Biblically speaking:

God put forward [Christ Jesus] as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:25–26)

The death of Christ is the basis for the believer’s exemption from condemnation, the courtroom equivalent of acquittal, pardon, and forgiveness. As Paul said, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died . . .” (Rom. 8:34).

Numerous other passages in the Bible describe God’s forgiveness, all of which presuppose atonement. One example of this is found in Ephesians where the apostle Paul argued, “In [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). Here, Paul shows redemption and forgiveness to be a direct, objective benefit of the blood (death) of Christ.

In another example we are told, “[God] will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” (Heb. 10:17). As can be seen in the context of Hebrews 10, the Judge chooses to remember sins no longer for a very specific reason—the sacrifice of Christ (vv. 10, 12, 14, 18–22). Because of Christ’s great atonement, our sin record is completely expunged forever!

It must be noted that the death of Christ bought more than a strictly legal settlement. The phrase in Christ, which appears seventy-three times in the New Testament, refers to a union with Christ in which the redeemed have one life with him, as truly as the head and the members of the same body have one life. This is a great, sacred, and glorious mystery, one to be further explored in chapter 7. But for now, let it suffice to say that none of this is possible apart from the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice.

Sadly, not everyone understands this requisite necessity for God to be just. Many picture him exclusively as absolute and unconditional love, thinking he will dismiss the legal demands that result from mankind’s sin on that basis alone. This approach is offensive to God because it demeans two of the other essential facets of his unfathomable nature—holiness and justice. In addition, to see God solely as love is to overlook the beauty and the purpose of the cross. For at the cross, the perfect holiness of God meets his perfect love in action. Worse, it is to belittle the costly price of Christ’s sacrifice. Neglecting the holiness of God and misunderstanding the vital significance of the cross is more than simply a theological error—it may have damning consequences, since apart from appropriating Christ’s great atonement, sinners must eternally bear the judicial penalty for their own sin.

The Cross: The Perfect Place for Curse Bearing

Today the cross has been romanticized and mythologized. In order for us to understand its significance, it must be placed back into its original, horrific context. History records that crucifixion incorporated a method resulting in the deepest possible humiliation and disgrace. It was the most scandalous and shameful of punishments, inflicted only on slaves. Free men could not be crucified until first being degraded into the category of a slave by the public application of servile stripes known as scourging, such as was done to Christ prior to nailing him to the cross.

Romans and Jews alike considered those executed by crucifixion to be cursed. To the Jews, a person suspended on a wooden cross had a special significance: it was a form of being hung on a tree, synonymous with being cursed by God for sin. This is clearly seen in the Old Testament: