There are those -- they call themselves Christians -- who would like to tell you that Christ did not die to save us. There are, of course, shades of intent there. On one end of the spectrum they will claim He didn't die at all. On the other end, sure, He died, but it was not to save us. We aren't saved "by His blood." God's wrath was not satiated by His Son's death. That's just barbaric. No, no, Jesus certainly (probably?) died, but it was for other reasons, not to save us. God does that all on His own. He doesn't need to be propitiated. He doesn't need to be expiated. He's perfectly fine. Your sins are forgiven, such as they are. Come on in!
There are problems with that, of course. It sounds reasonable. It sounds more friendly. I mean, why not have a God who can just wave His hands and your sins vanish? You can forgive; why can't He? Well, first and foremost, if the Gospel is about God's justice (Rom 1:16-17) -- if the Judge of all the Earth will always do what's just (Gen 18:25) -- then "all is forgiven" without justice is a rank contradiction. If God is to be true to Himself, He must be just.
The second, perhaps most obvious problem, though, is that the notion contradicts Scripture. Over and over we read things like God putting Christ "forward as a propitiation by His blood" (Rom 3:25) requiring 1) God to be propitiated -- His wrath satisfied -- and 2) Jesus's blood to do it. The New Testament is rich with this kind of language, and dismissing it simply dismisses the Scriptures.
There is one other critical result of this assault on Christ's sacrificial death on our behalf. The result is a love shrinkage. Paul indicated that God demonstrated His love for us by sending Christ to die for us. Oh, Christ didn't die for us? Then where's the love? Scripture says that "because of the great love with which He loved us" God made us alive with Him (Eph 2:4-5) ... which, apparently wasn't necessary. Jesus said, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Except, of course, we've just decided that He did no such thing.
It isn't surprising that people deny the good news that Christ died for our sin. This is "folly to those who are perishing." (1 Cor 1:18) It is a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others (1 Cor 1:23). But "to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor 1:18) So I'm not surprised that people would seek to diminish the problem of sin, diminish the cross, diminish the shed blood of Christ, diminish the gospel. They might even sound "wise." But it's not helping. If Christ didn't die for our sins, we've surrendered what God considered His best proof of His love. And that's not all we've surrendered.
2 comments:
Something dawned on me just now. The reason people are able to say God can simply forgive without fulfilling justice is the misunderstanding of how we forgive. We are told to forgive, not out of thin air, but out of the work of Christ. We can forgive because we aren't responsible for justice, God is, and He will ultimately fulfill justice. Without the death of Christ on behalf of sinners, we can't forgive others. We are told multiple times to forgive because we are forgiven. How can the two acts not be connected?
Yes, we can forgive because the ultimate offense is not against us (Psa 51:4), so we can forgive because we lay it in God's hands to deal with.
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